Cross & Crown
by JMK758
Summary: When the UESPA assigns a Chaplain to Enterprise, the shocks are just beginning. Soon murder, intrigue and the revelation of secrets are the course of the day. We learn a lot about Reed's past, far more than he would want anyone to know. Please R & R!
1. Carry the Cross

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Enterprise and everything connected with it, except Tia Anlor (Tee-ah' Ahn'-lor), who belongs to me and I'm not sharing. (G)

This is the 16th story in this series, the others being 'Golden Girl'; 'A Few Words'; 'Glistni'; 'Small Time'; 'Acquisition'; 'What Do I Do Now?'; 'For Want of Kilyiis'; 'Daasii'; 'Noblesse Oblige'; 'Roses and Thorny'; 'Time and Again', 'House of Cards' and 'Starlight Maiden', 'Armageddon' and 'Luuru' This story begins about two weeks after 'Luuru'. Later stories will include 'Pulsar', 'Face in the Dark Mirror', 'Time Stream', 'Life Goes On', 'Sufferance' and 'The Court Martial of Hoshi Sato'.

Rating: PG-13. Deathfic. Contains Brief Nudity and Adult Situations.

Cross and Crown

by: JMK758

Prologue

Captain Jonathan Archer turned off the screen, cutting off the Starfleet logo image that had replaced that of his commanding officer, Admiral Forrest, and sat back in his chair, considering. What the Admiral had just told him was going to take a bit of getting used to.

After he had digested the matter for a few minutes, he pressed the intercom button which linked him with Ensign Hoshi Sato's Communications station. "Ensign, please have Trip and Malcolm report to my Ready Room."

"Right away, sir." A few seconds later there was a signal at the door.

"Come." Malcolm, he knew, was right outside, but it turned out that Trip was already on the bridge, so both entered in short order.

"You wanted to see us, Cap'n?"

"Yes, Trip. I just wanted you both to know that we will be taking on additional crew."

Trip's smile broadened. "Great. I can use about three more in Engineering."

"And I can use three or four new security personnel." Archer suppressed a smile; Malcolm could hope for three or four, the most he could expect was one, if any. Still, he couldn't blame the man for trying.

"Sorry, fellows, you'll have to make due with due with extra shifts. This officer will be our new Chaplain."

"A what-lin, Cap'n?"

Archer tried to keep a serious expression, but it was hard. He decided just to press on. "The United Earth Space Probe Agency has decided that the need is great for 'spiritual guidance' aboard ships on long space missions."

"Them again." Malcolm muttered.

"I remember the last time they 'decided there was a need' for something. We almost lost Tia." He would not show the depth of his resentment. There was no need to.

"Well, this time I think we'll have less trouble. They assigned two members of the 'Chaplain's Corps' to ships in this sector. We are to rendezvous with the SS Claude Monet, pick up both, and transport one of them onward to the frigate Sevigny."

"One man?"

"That's it."

"Well," Malcolm said thoughtfully, "I have nothing against the idea; it makes sense. I just hope he's flexible."

"Right." Trip said. "Off the top of my head I can tell you about four different religions among the crew, and I don't even discuss religion. That's just what I've heard of; to say nothing of Phlox, T'Pol or Tia."

"I hope he knows what he's getting into." Archer agreed. "He's got his work cut out for him."

Chapter One

Carry the Cross

Captain Jonathan Archer and his Command Crew were assembled outside the launching bay, waiting for it to be re-pressurized. He had decided that an occasion such as this one demanded nothing less than a suitable show of respect for the personages boarding his vessel. He still had not decided which of the two Clergy would remain aboard Enterprise and which would continue on to the Sevigny, Enterprise having first choice. He wanted to get the impressions from his senior officers as soon as possible. Hence, the bridge was entirely staffed with relief crew from Beta shift until their eventual return.

As soon as the indicator beside the door showed that the pressure had been equalized he pressed the button, opening the door and leading his crew into the room. They were in position ranged behind him when Travis Mayweather shut down the systems in the Pod and opened the hatch.

The first person to exit the ship was a tall man with a shock of white hair. He wore black pants and a royal blue shirt, the high round collar of which was not blue but white. About his neck he wore a short cloth band of the same color as his shirt, so that to the eye the one blended into the other. From it was suspended, just below the neck, a somewhat unusual cross. It was red, overlaying a slightly smaller white Maltese cross so that only the eight white points showed past the Roman cross. The two were themselves overlaid within the crosspiece of the red cross by a much smaller straight sided black cross he thought he'd once heard called a Templar cross, overlaid with a red banner containing a slightly inclined gold cross, thereby comprising four emblems in one.

The tall man reached into the shuttle, taking the hand of his companion, courteously rendering unneeded aid down the single step. The woman who joined him was dressed identically to him in every detail, save that the cut of her clothing could not hide quite evident assets any more than her long, chestnut brown hair and smiling face could hide an age easily thirty years younger than her companion's.

Travis Mayweather came out of the pod next, speaking to his commander as the pair turned to face the assembled officers. "Captain Archer, Father George Pineda and Mother Patricia McCabe, Order of St. John."

He'd barely finished speaking when Mother McCabe gasped, one hand clutching her chest as all the color drained from her face. Her companion grasped her arm. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I -." She began, clearly shaken. "Yes, I – I'm all right. It's just – just …"

"The transition from one ship to another can sometimes be unsettling, no matter how 'standard' conditions are." Archer said. He'd seen similar reactions in new space travelers more than a few times, though rarely to this degree. He guessed this was her first time out in space.

"Yes. Yes, that – that must be it." She said, still clearly shaken but managing to pull herself back together. "I'm sorry to be a bother."

"Not at all." He assured her. "Father Pineda, Mother McCabe, on behalf of the Enterprise, it's a pleasure to welcome you aboard."

"Peace to this ship, and all aboard her." George Pineda said formally, then his manner instantly relaxed and he held out his hand in greeting. "And that will be the last of the formality." He took Archer's hand. "Please, it's George or Patricia, or if you want to be formal you can include our titles, but no extra formality, please."

Archer was mildly surprised but in no small way relieved. He had been uncertain just how to address the newcomers, and was quite pleased that the man had set the more relaxed tone early. He introduced his crew in turn, leaving off the obvious ranks. As handshakes were made all about, Archer did notice one thing in particular; Malcolm Reed was looking at the two in barely contained consternation.

No, he thought a moment later as his Tactical Officer greeted Mother McCabe; it was definitely the woman who was throwing Reed off his stride. To a certain extent he could understand it; the woman was exceptionally pretty. Some 'traditional' people still had trouble with woman priests, though he couldn't think of any religion that did not have them in abundance. He had not thought Malcolm would be so 'traditional', but coming from a stiff-upper-lip British background, sometimes even his friends could surprise him.

He was just about to speak when a soft tone from the intercom at the door presaged a call from the relief Comm officer. "Bridge to Captain Archer."

Excusing himself, he went to the panel. "Yes?"

"Admiral Forrest on channel 1."

"I'll take it in my Ready Room in a few minutes." Cutting the circuit, he turned back to the others. "I've arranged a tour of the ship, an opportunity to get you better acquainted with the crew."

"Thank you, Captain. We'd be delighted."

"Ensign?" He turned to the junior officer who stood unobtrusively by the door.

"Captain," Mother McCabe spoke up suddenly, "Would it be an imposition if Mr. Reed would conduct us?" Archer glanced at his Security Chief, noting that the man seemed particularly uncomfortable with this sudden request. He tried to hide it behind a carefully maintained mask of professional detachment, but could not do so from his friends.

McCabe had picked up something, Archer decided. If so, perhaps it was best to clear up any possible problem early, but he could not see what was bothering the man. Putting on his best non-committal smile, Archer answered the woman with as short a pause as possible.

"No imposition at all. Lieutenant?"

There. He threw the ball back into Reed's court. If the man had a problem, now was the time to say so. "Of course, Captain. I'd be …" He glanced at the two clergy. "…delighted." He concluded, making it as smooth as possible, which was not at all.

xx

As the group left the Shuttle bay for their respective duties, Archer found his Chief Engineer walking beside him a few meters down the corridor. "I never thought I'd see Malcolm so far gone."

"What do you mean?" He asked, wanting the other man's input.

"Come on, you didn't see that look in his eyes? He couldn't take them off our Mother Patricia McCabe. Can't blame him a bit, however; she sure is a stunner."

Archer looked at his friend. This was a viewpoint he had not considered. Maybe Trip was more observant than he was. If so, it explained a lot in a much better way than he'd feared. "You think so?"

"Oh, yeah. You know; if I took a twenty pound sledge and," he pantomimed a hefty swing, "got him just between the eyes, I think he'd respond more naturally than he just did."

"You're a fine one to talk." Archer said with a smile. "I remember when you first laid eyes on Miss Anlor, about eight months ago or so. You were all set to start running the Enterprise on diesel." Trip smiled wryly at the memory.

"I guess we all get blown out of the water in our own ways. With me, it was like a torpedo at the water line. He looks more like he's been depth charged."

xxx

"You're kidding! You were in the Royal Navy?" Reed exclaimed, hugely impressed.

"Nearly 28 years." George Pineda confirmed. "I 'retired' as a Lieutenant Commander and entered the Priesthood about 10 years ago. During the past 5 years I've served on three vessels in Starfleet: the 'Daedalus', the 'Aurora' and the 'Rising Star'."

"'Rising Star'? I served on her nearly 15 years ago, under Captain Spalding."

"Spalding's retired now. Binghamton's in command."

"Old Lead Bottom?"

"More like 'Rust Bottom' now," Pineda held up a finger, "but you didn't hear that from me." He pulled himself up with an air of dignity. "I have to show proper respect."

"Oh, of course." Reed agreed broadly. He found himself really liking this man, in particular his down-to-earth nature. He was not at all what he'd expected.

Through this, Mother McCabe retained a quiet perspective, listening to the two men exchange notes and comparisons and stories as they toured. But every time he caught her eye, Reed's composure faltered slightly. He simply could not look at her without feeling … he did not know exactly what he was feeling, but no one could miss the effect she was having on his equilibrium, particularly not her partner.

"Perhaps it's time we turned in." Pineda said, thinking to clear the way for the two 'youngsters' to talk. "Tomorrow is a busy day, and I'm sure your Captain is going to want to get into the interviews."

"I expect so."

"When do we rendezvous with the 'Sevigny'?

"Monday."

"Fine. Then we'll both be serving the first Lenten Mass prior to that. A good opportunity to meet the crew, and vice versa."

"That it should be."

Finally, they arrived at guest quarters on deck D. Reed showed Fr. Pineda to his rooms first. They, of course, looked from the outside exactly like any other, except for being labeled D/67. Pineda extended his hand, offering. Mother McCabe, closest to the control, did the 'honors', pressing the button to admit them.

Inside, the rooms were no different from any other guest quarters; a single 'large' room which served as living and working area by virtue of a bunk, desk and chair, and a smaller half-room to their left, which area would be 'shared' by a corresponding half-room next door. The man needed no real introduction to the accoutrements, what little there were in the Spartan quarters.

Mother McCabe looked around at the few items of interest, which took about fifteen seconds, waiting patiently while Reed and Pineda continued their conversation, which went pretty much along the lines of Reed's apologizing for the small size of the guest facilities, and Pineda assuring him he'd dealt with smaller during his days in the Service. Then, it was time to introduce Mother McCabe to her rooms. McCabe, again closest to the door, let them out.

Reed barely looked at the woman as he activated the door next to that of the elderly Priest's quarters, letting her precede him into the room, all efficiency, officer and gentleman. He showed her where everything was with as much professional detachment as he could muster as she stood expectantly; barely patiently listening to his capsulated review of the contents of the room, as she'd pretty much heard it all a few seconds earlier.

Her room was a mirror image of Pineda's except that her 'refresher' was located aft rather than fore. Reed concluded his review as impersonally as possible, finishing with "if you need anything, just use the intercom." He started out.

She stepped directly in front of him.

"Why are you uncomfortable?" She tried to keep her voice even, unthreatening. No need to put his back up too soon.

"I'm not uncomfortable, Reverend Mother." He did not meet her eyes, however.

"Is there anything … anything at all … that you want to say to me?"

"I wouldn't know what to say, Reverend."

She tried to restrain a sigh of impatience. He was really going out of his way, she thought, to make this difficult, far more so than it had to be. "Please, you don't have to call me that. If I'm going to be the one assigned here, you don't have to be so … formal."

"I'm not being 'formal'. It's just that …" His voice trailed off.

"What?" He didn't answer. "You've made your discomfort quite obvious, as if I could have any trouble telling."

"I'm sorry, I had no idea."

There was a moment of silence. Another. A longer moment. A much longer moment.

She shook her head sadly. "Malcolm Reed, is there _anything_ more you want to say to me?"

"I'm sorry?"

She sighed feelingly, exasperated. "All right, if you won't, I _will_!"

She reached out, grasping his uniform just below his chin and pulling the surprised man to her open lips, kissing him fervently. She held him firmly in a tight embrace as he stood stunned. But then, a few moments later, he slowly put his arms around her as she kissed him with more fire, deeper, as if she would draw him through her parted lips.

Gradually his reserve dropped, and he started to return the kiss, though barely able to match her fire. He felt monumentally uncomfortable, but after many very long moments he managed to force himself to forget that he was kissing a Priest.

When she sensed that his shields had finally dropped, that he was beginning to allow himself to enjoy it, she let go, and he could pull back. Both of them were breathing harder. There was a dazed look in his eyes.

"There, Malcolm! _That's_ how you greet an ex-fiancé!"


	2. Surprises

Chapter Two

Surprises

At precisely 0700, Commander Charles Tucker pressed the signal button to quarters E/58. He did not have long to wait, the door slid aside almost immediately. The woman inside was dressed in a flowing garment of green, decorated with scores of flowers of every variety and hue. It reached just past her hips, baring a generous length of golden legs. Low green slippers completed the brief garment. Trip gave a low whistle of appreciation.

"I if like it would ask you do, but I think there is need not." She said softly in a voice like ear candy, a mellow seductiveness that could not be diminished.

"You always have that effect on me." He admitted. In the two weeks since she had undergone a phase in the life cycle of an Auran known as the 'luuru', the woman had been gradually readjusting to her new life aboard Enterprise, just as the crew had been 'adjusting' to the changes in her.

They had come to know her as a somewhat petit young woman of apparently some twenty years, with a complexion, hair and eyes distinctly that of a species that was almost wholly humanoid but which had evolved on a world where gold was as plentiful as iron was on earth. That the gold required an extra molecular bond with oxygen to be carried by the blood mattered little to others, and none to him.

Now, she had seemed to mature almost ten years, at least in body, literally over a day. In personality and character she was completely unchanged, but where humans had the luxury of going through that particular phase of their life cycle over several years, Aurans had to endure it in one cataclysmic day.

As a result, she appeared to be in about her late twenties, more closer to Trip's age. He was comforted by this, but there was much more to adjust to.

Inside she was still the same, a refugee of a harsh life as a slave, a member of a subjugated species just discovering the joy of life, and the freedom to become who she truly was in an atmosphere of freedom and liberty.

And a hidden part within her, the part no one saw save him, had no idea who that was ultimately going to be.

"You look beautiful." He told her.

"Ealyiis, Shar-les." She said softly, almost shyly, in a melodious, almost sweetly seductive voice. She reached out and took his right hand and, raising it palm up, touched her lips to his wrist. It was not a kiss, but an Auran greeting exchanged among friends. She did it with the members of the crew she considered such. However, he noticed that she tended to linger just a breath longer with him. Her eyes looked up to his, and there was more of a smile in those golden orbs than even on her lips.

She released him a moment later, straightening, a secret something tugging at her golden lips. He did not return the gesture, feeling it ingenuous to do so, and she had never appeared to expect it. It was different than when she would touch her lips to his neck; that was usually understood to be a prelude to something more intimate than they would do in this corridor. Clearing his throat, he continued as naturally as he could.

"I thought we'd have breakfast together." He knew very well she usually met Ensigns Sato and Cutler for her meals, but he had wanted to have some free time with her. And judging by the 'dress' she had worn; he had to doubt that his appearance at her door was a complete surprise.

"That I to do would very much like, Shar-les." He smiled. He also doubted he would ever get completely used to her fractured, sometimes outright shattered, syntax. He knew that, despite her long efforts to learn English so she would not be dependant upon the somewhat unreliable Universal Translator, she still thought in her native Auran, and tended to translate the thoughts verbatim. It made conversations with her somewhat adventurous.

"That's a really nice dress." He said appreciatively. "But what does Lt. Abrams think of your coming to 'work' like that?"

"It matters to him not. Today my first reddo is."

"Huh?" Was this some obscure Auran thing, as if everything about Auran were not obscure to him. Was this a holiday, some observance, some …?

"You know do." She said in a surprised tone, as if he had missed something that should be more obvious to him than to her. "You have reddos too." He thought even harder, resisting the urge to check his uniform.

"I do?"

"Daai." She insisted with a smile, pronouncing it 'day-aye'. "Five days do you labor, or could if like the Engineering so much you did not, and two you do not."

"Ah." Light dawned. "R.D.O. Regular Day Off."

"Daai, silly one!"

"Well, in that case, I'll escort you to breakfast, and you can get on with your 'reddo-ing'."

She giggled delightedly, took his offered right arm, and he escorted her down the corridor. They were able to walk side by side a little differently than before, somewhat more comfortably, as she no longer had to look up at him. One of the 'consequences' of the 'luuru', aside from a somewhat more 'womanly' physique, was an increase of slightly more than 5 inches in height.

'Talk about a growth spurt'. He thought. He kept the thought to himself, however. It was true that her matured body brought her to the fulfillment of her physical development, but it had come at a cost of almost unimaginable agony as every part of her body was forced through massive changes. Liz and Hoshi had told him things that Tia had never even hinted at, and left him feeling the same amazement for this young woman as he had always felt.

In fact, he had to admit that 'amazement' was a frequent sensation wherever Tia was concerned. "So, what's it like?" He asked. "Getting used to it?" She shook her head.

"Nyas. I 'used to it' am getting nyasi."

"It's been two weeks."

"Oh, my body to I getting used am. It my friends is." He looked at her curiously. "Liz, Hoshi, Jennifer, Ann, Dina, Andrea, they … 'in stride'?" He nodded. "In stride it take. Same with men on the bridge it is. And Phlox. But others, they the same nyasi."

"In what way?"

"They …" She hesitated, lost for a second. "I know not. I the words describe it to can find nyasi." She visibly hunted for the way to express a thought that was clearly alien to her. "Humans used I am to not, even after 8 goslin. With Aurans different it is. It is that only is the luuru unusual nyasi, but … well, look at me people different do." She walked a little in silence. "Some with it I like. Some I do nyasi."

"It's going to take people a while to get used to the change." She shook her head.

"It that is alone nyasi. I …" She shook her head. "I do know nyasi. Liz and Hoshi, they know do. Explain it they did, but sometimes what they say do; sense it makes nyasi."

He could well sympathize with that. He spent most of his attention in conversations with her just interpreting what she said, and imagined that to her English must be just as unintelligible. Even when she got 'colloquial' English, there were expressions, connotations and simple 'slang' that frequently still mystified her. "What do they say?"

"When ask I Liz of why men so strangely at me look; says she it to do with has 'a walking wet dream' I am."

Trip sputtered, caught completely off guard, almost losing a step. In retrospect, he knew he should not have been so surprised, knowing the Biologist as he did, but in the moment he was startled. She looked at him, misinterpreting his response. "See? Sense her words make not!"

"Oh, they make sense, all right." He indulged in a look at her voluptuous form, even with the flowing short floral 'dress'. "Perfect sense."

She shook her head. "Nyas. How a 'dream' walk can? And how 'wet' one be can?"

"Whoo." He breathed feelingly. "That's a 'hail' of a question." And he really wished he could fend it off on Hoshi or Liz Cutler to answer.

Then again, he probably should have seen it coming. She was quite different, yet the same, almost like an older sister of herself. And while the entire crew knew she was his 'special friend' (to put it politely), he had never really put out any 'no poaching' signs. He'd really never thought of it, had never conceived of any 'need' to. Now, looking at the concern in her eyes, he wondered if maybe he should consider it after all.

But at that moment Jonathan Archer and Malcolm Reed met them from an intersecting corridor. Morning greetings were briefly exchanged, Tia in her own manner greeting each of them with a touch of lips upon right wrists, but where the touch with Trip lingered, this was but a brief contact. Each man was quite used to this gesture, and since she'd never indicated it should be returned, neither did. But then Tia turned back from Reed to Archer, her normal impetuous excitement resurfacing.

"Wrenaouq Archer, may I you a favor of ask?" She almost tried to keep the excitement in her tone down. Might as well keep a helium balloon down.

"If I can give it."

"The Auran ship. I it to contact wan-." She bit it off, not wanting to sound too forward. "… need." She asked hopefully.

Jonathan tried to keep his thoughts from showing on his face. They had had this discussion three times over the past weeks. "Miss Anlor, we've discussed this. If they are out there, they are surely running silent to escape detection by the Silurians. If we start talking to them, it may give away their position and do more harm than good."

"But idea this we discuss did nyasi!" She insisted, excitedly.

'When doesn't she sound excited or enthused?' He thought. "What?"

"A signal single; something recognize they would but the Silurians nyasi." When he did not turn her down, she continued, emboldened. "One phrase, on a frequency that we used in secrecy; the Silurians it knew nyasi."

"You mean, when you left." Reed pointed out. She would not be daunted.

"One phrase. 'Auranli eda.' 'Auran I am'. If receive it they do, find _us_ they will! Need for them to answer nyas!"

Archer regarded the enthused young woman carefully, noting most of all a controlled but clearly greater desperation than he'd seen the last time they'd spoken about this, some two weeks ago. He recognized she was trying to come up with a solution he would agree to. He did not care for this one any more than the others, as this one sounded like it had the potential of drawing the Silurian ship to _them_.

But on the other hand, how many times could he keep turning her down? Perhaps he could come up with something with Hoshi's aid. "I'll think about it and give you my answer."

"But Wrenaouq - !"

He held up a firm hand. "I said I'll _think_ about it."

She backed down, looking to the deck. "Daai, Wrenaouq."

x

"Well," Archer said, breaking the moment, "I'm sure we're all looking forward to meeting with our new guests."

"And choosing which one stays with us." Malcolm agreed.

"I bet I know which one you'll choose." Trip said with a barely disguised grin. He'd seen the many covert looks the Security Chief had given the extremely attractive woman Priest the previous afternoon.

Reed nodded. "Father Pineda."

Archer and Tucker could not have been more surprised. Trip was the first to recover.

"I thought for sure you'd want that very pretty Mother McCabe."

"Well, you thought wrong." Both officers were mildly surprised at the real emotion underscoring Reed's words. He'd tried to keep it down, but had not succeeded at all.

Archer opened his mouth to say something, but another man's voice spoke instead. "Security to Lt. Reed." The Security Chief stepped over to the comm panel.

"Reed here."

"Cein, sir. There's a problem in guest quarters, D deck. Our new visitors." Reed turned to Archer and Tucker, but addressed the panel.

"We're on our way."

Trip turned to Tia, ready to apologize for having to leave her behind, but she shook her head, understanding the urgency in the crewmember's tone.

The three officers strode down the corridor, not wasting a second.

xxx

By the time they arrived at the indicated quarters there were three Security guards keeping a small knot of curious crewmen and women who were coming onto and off duty from being able to see into an open room. The only one not in Starfleet blue was Mother McCabe, her black trousers and royal blue shirt a notable exception to the uniformity of color in the small crowd. She turned to the three officers as they approached, her face lined with distress. Her attention focused on Reed.

"I called Security when I couldn't get an answer from him. Your guard opened the door." Malcolm took in her worried features and continued past her, coming to a stop in the doorway. A moment later the Captain and Chief Engineer joined him.

Rev. Father George Pineda lay upon the bunk, the picture of placid repose. The long hilt of a knife protruded from the center of his chest. His pajamas and much of the bunk and deck were covered in pools of blood.


	3. CSI

Chapter Three

CSI

Dr. Phlox stood as close to the body as he could without stepping in the wide pool of red blood that still dripped occasionally from the saturated mattress. He was the veteran of more investigations into unexpected death then he cared to count. He knew what was expected and how to obtain it. More significantly, he knew what was to be avoided.

He aimed his molecular scanner at the motionless body, taking a complete series of readings. What he collected this time would not tell how the man had gotten into this condition so much as help determine who had made him so.

About him, ignored as much as possible by the Denobulan, were as many scientists as could fit into the tightly spaced room at once, all trying to gather what information they could. He waited about three minutes, then turned around and threw them all out.

A moment later Captain Archer and Lt. Reed, neither of whom could be ejected, stood beside him. With them was Ensign Jim Cein, who had made the initial call, decks B, C & D Starboard being his sector. "What can you tell us?" The Security Officer asked. Phlox glanced up at him.

"He's dead, Jim."

"We can see that." Archer replied testily. The only thing worse than a death aboard his ship was the murder of a guest.

"A single stab wound directly through the heart. It severed the aorta, death was instantaneous. Judging by the condition of the body, I'd say he was asleep and likely was never aware that he'd died."

That was something of a chilling thought. Archer did not know how Denobulans felt about the subject, but the concept of a man who did not know that he had died…

"I'd put the time of death at between 0200 and 0230. I'll be able to be more specific when I get the body into Sick Bay."

"The knife is pretty familiar." Cein noted. Reed nodded in agreement.

"Chef's got about a hundred of them in the Mess Hall."

"Talk to him. Find out how long he's had ninety-nine." Archer directed. The look Reed gave his assistant did not need words. The younger man nodded.

"At least we don't have to look far for suspects." Phlox pointed out, glancing out to the corridor. Archer nodded in agreement. The man had come aboard with barely a day's notice, with one companion, had a single brief tour of the ship, and was dead a few hours later. Suspects would not be plentiful, though the thought gave him no pleasure at all.

"I'm not sure I agree, sir." Reed objected. Archer looked at him curiously. "It's too pat. The only person on the ship who knows him; the only one on this ship who's ever met him in fact, is in the room right next door, and a few hours later he's dead? If we assume she even _wanted_ to, she could have probably done it a thousand ways that would keep anyone from suspecting her." Archer glanced at Phlox.

"I agree." The doctor said. "I'd only met her for about five minutes yesterday, but she does not strike me as an imbecile."

In spite of the grimness of the situation, Archer could not help but smile at the physician's summation. It would be an act of staggering stupidity for anyone to make herself the only possible suspect. "All right, I want to know who did this before our rendezvous with the 'Sevigny'. That gives you two days, gentlemen. Don't let me down."

"Yes, sir."

"I suggest back-tracking, Lieutenant." Cein said. "Maybe someone on board isn't the stranger to him that we're assuming." Reed nodded.

"Put Carstairs on the historical records, and Tigat as follow-up. Get his history from Starfleet and match it against everyone on board. Tell them to go back to bloody primary school if they have to."

"Yes, sir." The man turned and left, pausing at the door to have a blonde Security Officer follow him. Andrea Carstairs did not look back, somewhat relieved to leave the post. Archer turned to Reed.

"Do you have everything you need?"

"For the moment, sir. When the Doctor's done, I'll have the body moved to the morgue and a seal placed on the door."

"Then let's go. I want to talk to Mother McCabe."

xx

Rev. Patricia McCabe sat on her bunk, absorbed in prayers that did not cushion her from the grief and shock that assailed her. That George Pineda was dead was shocking enough under the best of conditions; the man had seemed full of life and without a care in the universe. In fact, on this last trip he'd seemed more at ease with the cosmos than he had in all the time she'd known him.

But that he was murdered, that was the devastating thing. She'd seen him last night. They were strangers, virtual strangers, at least she believed, to everyone – almost everyone – on board this ship. That he lay now in the next room with a knife in his chest was … she had no word for it.

Added to this was the shock and distress at finding Malcolm again, and the pain of that reunion. She did not know how she would have imagined it to be, being so totally unexpected. She had not known he was aboard this ship. She had been pursuing her life, her mission, and suddenly there he was.

There he was, a vital piece of her past, of her life, of the future that would have been. That _should_ have been. It should have been an occasion for joyous reunion, for celebration and revelry. She had not known, could never have imagined, that it would be a cause for such pain.

She shook her head, recognizing her fractured thoughts. She was badly shaken, and here in her quarters she realized she had the privacy to give in to her feelings. She did not have to be in control, did not have to appear calm and collected, did not have to maintain the outward dignity of her Calling. There would be a time and need later for such practiced veneers. They were going to be coming for her soon; of that there was no doubt, and she would have to show all these things, to be all these things. But for these few minutes of privacy, she could surrender to her feelings; to her grief.

Her hand clutched the cross at her chest, feeling the emotions she'd kept so tight a rein upon surface again, and she surrendered.

xx

Jonathan Archer pressed the annunciation button a few minutes later. Beside him stood his Chief of Security and, in the room before him, he hoped he would find some answers.

It took a few moments, and when the door slid open the Rev. Patricia McCabe was on the other side.

She looked much as she had when he'd first laid eyes on her yesterday; and yet not. She still looked in her late 30's, still long chestnut hair framed a face of almost startling beauty, still the same clerical uniform of black trousers, royal blue shirt, the inch high collar of the shirt a band of stiff white at her throat, and the quadruple cross suspended from a blue cloth collar. This time, however, though her eyes and face were recently rubbed dry, those eyes were red from prolonged crying, and she wore a barely masked expression of grief. Even now, she kept a very careful control of her appearance and manner, but it was a precariously strained one indeed. "Reverend, may we come in?"

She nodded, barely able to speak yet, and stepped aside to admit them. She keyed the door closed and turned to greet her 'guests'. She tried to dry her eyes without their noticing, and they obligingly failed to notice.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mother McCabe." Archer said, acknowledging her obvious grief.

"Thank you, Captain." She managed to say, grateful that she could keep her voice from shaking so soon. If she spoke softly, she could just about keep it under control.

"Did you know him long?"

"On and off, for about six years. He traveled frequently. He was off world far more often than I was."

"The order you belong to…" He left it hanging. He did not miss the fact that her eyes occasionally darted to Reed. The looks were brief, but frequent.

"The Order of St. John." She answered, knowing fully well that he knew that already. She touched the unique quadruple cross absently. It combined the traditional Roman cross in red, overlaying a Maltese cross of white so that the edges of the arms showed above, below and to either side of the red cross. Over all, on the vertex, was a square shield, itself a cross in black on which was a banner of red inset with a diagonal tiny golden cross. "Our Order is an ancient one, dating back to the Crusades on Earth, combining the several Orders of Christian Knighthood; Hospitalers, Templar, Rhodes, Teutonic and several other Orders under one banner. We've had an eclectic history."

"Why were you chosen for this assignment?" She considered. She recognized that these questions were only preliminary, a way of trying to put her at ease while gauging her reactions and manner. She knew the questions were soon going to get a lot harder.

"Well, I was born and raised an Anglican, but I have extensive training in both psychology and psychiatry. A lot of my role in space is going to be in these disciplines."

"You describe yourself as an Anglican; but I thought the Order of St. John was…"

"Oh, yes. There actually was, and is, a branch of the Order, now technically united, in every denomination in the world." She smiled, but it was a sad one, tinged by grief. "We're a strange puppy, if you look to us with an eye for all the Christian denominations as a whole.

"Starting in the late 20th Century, a series of accords 'culminated' in the 'Seventh Vatican Council'; so named, I always thought, because no place else was big enough to hold all the delegates.

"You see, the differences in the various denominations are not so much a matter of religion. We all believe in God and Jesus Christ, but the difference is in who runs the Church and how it operates.

"The differences in our worship services were never insurmountable, and after VC7 the intent was to gradually phase everything together into one form over a 50 year period." She smiled. "Though sometimes I now wonder to which planet's 'year' they referred."

"Not much luck?"

"Some. But fifty years was overly optimistic. As Christians we are one; but pick a Leader."

"And if you stay here," Archer pointed out, "you'll have to integrate several denominations and religions plus Denobulan, Vulcan and Auran."

"Oh, joy. I can hardly wait."

"How do you run things, if you are one Order among several denominations?"

"Well, the original Order, Roman, was under a 'Grand Master', and we have one too, after a fashion. He's selected by the heads of the various denominations, but he has no real power. He serves as an Advisor, and his real job is to coordinate our 'eventual' integration under one banner. It's a position I do _not_ aspire to, believe me! The job has already outlasted four 'Grand Masters', and I really don't think the current one gets very much joy out of life."

"So Father Pineda was from the Anglican denomination?"

"Actually, he was Roman."

"But you wear the same …" Archer had to let it trail off, feeling a little lame.

"Actually, the raiment was the easiest accord. _Everyone_ got a new … uniform." She said with a small smile.

"How well did you two get along, considering the differences?"

She thought about it. "About as well as someone from your Life Sciences division and, let's say, Security."

"Actually, in one case, that's pretty well indeed." Reed opined, thinking of Jim Cein and Liz Cutler.

"I suspect it would help if you related our Order to this ship. You have your Commanders, Lieutenant Commanders and Lieutenants who head up different departments. You'd fill the role of 'Grand Master', though in more than an advisory capacity, but the various crewmen and crewwomen in multiple departments function as members of one ship."

"Thank you. That's very clear. Now, I'm sorry, but we have to ask you some tougher questions."

"As a suspect." She said as calmly as she was able, hiding her pain behind a carefully built mask made up of years of training in keeping her feelings from showing on her face. She often had to withhold her own feelings when dealing with other people's grief. That training came in useful now, in ways she had never conceived of needing.

Despite her distress, she almost smiled at the 'taken aback' expressions on their faces. They did not 'expect' her to be calm, and their expressions could almost make her feel a tiny bit better – if not for the horror of the situation they faced. "I'm the only one he knew here, so far as I know. I'd have to be pretty vapid not to realize you'd think I did it." She could barely believe she'd said the words. It all seemed so much a nightmare. Pineda dead, herself a 'logical' suspect, it was all the stuff of madness. She tried to keep from showing how much it cost her, but inside her heart clenched at the thought.

"We don't think you did it."

Archer had been about to make a mild protest to the effect that there were other possibilities being investigated as well, but the definitive tone in Reed's voice surprised him. He turned to his Security Chief. "Well, sir, it does seem …" He had maintained a definite tone to that point, but then broke eye contact. "…unlikely."

"Yes." Archer admitted, not pleased to have been undermined, however. But he turned to her. "We have to consider all possibilities. Malcolm?" The moment of silence that responded to his direction made him turn to his friend.

"Yes, sir." He looked at the woman, and Archer could not remember the last time he seemed reluctant to ask a question. "Would you … care to sit down?"

'Oh, for –.' Archer bit the thought back. He'd find out _later_ what was taking the wind out of his Security Chief's sails, but for now he'd had enough. "Reverend McCabe, did you leave your quarters last evening?"

"Yes, I did." The woman answered, surprising him. "I couldn't sleep. I never can on the first night in a new room, so I went out. I stopped at the Mess Hall. I'd thought about something to eat."

"Did anyone see you?" She shook her head.

"I don't think so. I don't recall seeing anyone. It was quite late."

"How late?"

"Around 1:30."

Archer thought about it. Gamma shift would be less than two hours into their tour, but it would not be 'lunchtime' until about 0400, so it was possible. Then again, the knife had come from the Mess Hall.

"What time did you return?"

"I'm not sure. Around about 2:30, I'd guess."

Phlox had fixed the time of death between 0200 and 0230. "You spent about an hour in the Mess Hall?"

"No, Captain. Just a few moments. When I got there, I decided I wasn't hungry after all."

"Then you were out of your quarters for about an hour, and no one saw you? Where did you go?" Her eyes flickered aside toward Malcolm Reed for an instant, and she looked _very_ uncomfortable.

"Captain, there are some things that, at this moment, I do not think I can speak openly about." She saw his expression darken. "But I give you my word that none of them have anything to do in any way with what happened to George Pineda. It is not, _quite_, covered by Sacramental seal, but I would have to consider just how much I should reveal … about things that have been told to me in privacy."

"Did you kill Father Pineda?" He asked suddenly, attempting to startle her. He succeeded.

"No." She answered definitely. He could find no lie in her eyes.

"All right." He turned to Reed. "Carry on. Let me know as soon as your team has anything." He looked at the woman. "Reverend."

"Captain."

x

Jonathan Archer left the room, feeling a knot in the pit of his stomach. The room next door was closed, a single guard remaining outside.

"Doctor Phlox has returned to Sick Bay, but the body is still inside, sir." The man reported crisply. Archer nodded, trying to make it friendly, or at least non-committal as he then continued on his way, but he was really too upset to trust his voice.

There was something going on, and it seemed to have something to do with Mother McCabe and his Security Chief, the same one who was so keen _not_ to have her stay on. McCabe had more than intimated that whatever it was she considered confidential; she'd come right out and said it. And Malcolm was pretty firm in his certainty that she had not done the elder priest to death.

But just what was going on? She had not invoked Sacramental seal. If she had he doubted he could pry the answer out of her by any means. But she had also given her word that what she was withholding had nothing at all to do with Pineda's death.

For now, he decided to bide his time, and to wait on what the evidence revealed. Maybe he did not have to take action at all. Maybe it was innocent – no, strike that. Maybe one thing did actually have nothing to do with the other, but he would wait and find out.

But much as he wanted to believe there was no connection, a nagging thought in the back of his mind would not be silenced. But, damn it, she'd given her word – yet though he had never imagined being in the position of questioning the word of a 'person of the cloth', he did not know her and had absolutely no idea how good her word was.

He decided he would have to let this whole matter – both these matters – play out. As he walked toward the turbolift, he found himself empathizing with his friend Trip. He really wished he had a bar of neutronium to chew on.


	4. Clues

Chapter Four

Clues

"Ensign Cutler to Captain Archer." The intercom in the Ready Room spoke three hours later. Archer looked up from the report he was reading on the monitor screen and touched a button.

"Archer here."

"Captain, could you meet me in my quarters? It's very important." Archer was mildly surprised, and was about to 'invite' the woman to his Ready Room, but something about the request intrigued him. It was just far enough out of the ordinary to get his attention, especially as he was involved in a situation that was filled with outré elements.

"I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Thank you, Captain."

He turned off the intercom and was about to return his attention to Reed's preliminary report. But a special sense, one he had learned to trust, one that served him well in stressful situations, told him it would be more advantageous to answer this request first.

Blanking the report off the screen, he stood up and left his sanctum.

xxx

A few minutes later he was standing outside cabin D/47. When he pressed the annunciation button the door slid aside, revealing the young biologist. "Ensign? What is it you wanted to tell me?"

"Actually," a male voice came from within the room, "I asked her to invite you here. I wanted to speak to you privately, sir." Archer looked inside to see Jim Cein from Security. Cutler stepped aside, admitting the Captain. "Ensign; thank you for your assistance." He said formally.

"Don't mention it." She replied with a barely hidden smile; then pushed the door button again, exiting when the portal slid open. When it had closed behind her, Archer turned to the guard.

"I presume you have excellent reasons for this 'cloak and dagger' maneuver?"

"The best, sir. I've turned up evidence that can be … sensitive; and I wanted to present it privately, in case my interpretations are wrong."

"And those are?" He could see that the man was loath to speak. Yet he had sent for Archer, not the reverse.

"Sir, I started gathering evidence by checking the times when the doors to the two Priests' quarters were used, particularly after Zero hours. Mother McCabe, as she testified, left her quarters at 0131. Father Pineda's door opened and closed twice; once at 0153, then at 0237. Mother McCabe's door opened and closed again at 0239."

"That seems to fit the theory."

"No, sir. It seemed to, but the two minutes at the end bothered me. They're next door to each other. I couldn't see her standing in the corridor for two extra minutes. Especially when there was no attempt to get rid of the weapon."

"Yes. That is unlikely."

"Yes, sir. There was something more that turned up while I was checking the door logs. When Lieutenant Reed brought the two Reverends to their quarters, he would have shown them the amenities. It's the usual routine. There is an interval of 3.3 minutes between the initial and second openings and closings of Father Pineda's door, which is just about right. But it seems that with Mother McCabe, he was in there with her for 47 minutes."

"That's …interesting." And far beyond what he knew of the man. If, on the one hand, his impression from last evening was right and he was uncomfortable with the woman's presence, he'd hardly spend three quarters of an hour with her. That seemed consistent with his choice of Pineda. On the other hand, if Trip Tucker's estimation was right, and he was smitten with her, it seemed unaccountably forward of the man to spend so long in a single woman's private room. It was not the behavior of the Malcolm Reed he knew.

"That's when I started questioning other things." Cein continued. "There are too many things about this case that _almost_ add up, yet do not. We're looking into Father Pineda's background, seeing who aboard this ship may know him from an earlier time, who may have a motive? I thought, maybe we're looking into the wrong background."

"Explain."

"Mother McCabe. I ran a background check on her, and there is one person on board who, for twenty two years, lived 0.37 kilometers away from her."

"Who?"

"Lieutenant Reed."

x

"What do you have?"

"Sir, Lt. Reed's door also opened and closed during that period, once at 0135,

again at 0234, and then a third time at 0236.

"With Doctor Phlox's help we have found traces of Reverend McCabe's DNA on both the outer and inner door buttons of Father Pineda's quarters. Based on my other findings, I asked him to run the same trace on Lt. Reed's outer door. The test came back positive. Lt. Reed was not present. I then asked the doctor to run that same test on the inner controls. Sir, that test came back positive as well."

Cein tried to keep his inner thoughts from showing on his face. He had, in his report, now testified that he had pushed his authority beyond the breaking point by opening a superior officer's quarters without authorization and with just barely 'probable cause'. He knew that if he did not get Archer's approval, he was facing considerable risk.

He was vastly relieved when his Captain did not rebuke him. In that moment he'd gained the Captain's belated authorization for his actions, and had saved himself a load of potential problems.

x

Archer thought about all the man had told him. In light of what he'd seen and heard in McCabe's quarters, it did not come as the surprise he'd thought it would. In fact, if things had not worked out this way, he would have been surprised. "What do you know?"

"Well, sir, without being able to contact Earth yet for more detailed records, I really have no more information than that. There are several explanations for the times indicated, but no witnesses that we can find yet, nor anything of a concrete nature. That's why I did not want to come to you on the bridge, or meet openly with you. I have no more evidence in the Lieutenant's favor than I have against it. That he knew her is highly probable, considering the size of the community where they hailed from. That there's any complicity … is completely unknown. There is just too little evidence."

"Good. I like an officer who does not draw conclusions where there are none." He thought about it, not liking to say what he had to. "Your orders, Ensign, are to continue this line of research. Also, find out what other doors may have opened during that period. I have a feeling that that is going to be a barely tapped mine."

"Yes, sir."

xxx

Half an hour later, Ensign Cein returned to his quarters, deciding he could just as easily continue his research on his own terminal as from anywhere else. His first duty was to ask Hoshi Sato to contact the appropriate records areas on Earth, hopefully without his Chief finding out. He felt extremely tense. This was more than just a murder investigation. Somehow, it had hit unexpectedly close to home. And he did not like the direction in which it seemed to be leading him.

He sat down at his desk chair, leaning back, sighing and not feeling a bit of the tension easing.

A moment later, the door to his 'fresher slid open. He looked up, startled to see Elizabeth Cutler standing in the doorway. As if that were not enough of a surprise, he was astonished to see her significantly out of uniform.

She was, in fact, 'wearing' the scarlet 'babydoll' negligee she had almost worn that day their friendship had taken a far more intimate turn.

Several weeks ago he'd responded to an alert from Reed that several crewwomen were in danger, and he'd been assigned to Cutler's quarters. She'd met him, 'dressed' in this sheer red negligee which did not hide but only tinted, one half pulled completely off her shoulder and arm, her bare breast enticingly exposed, and no panties anywhere in sight. She'd greeted him with a tone that could have melted any of the ship's bulkheads before being startled by his presence, but had visibly changed her mind, dropped any embarrassment … and things had gone on from there.

He'd always known she had been expecting someone else. That had, somehow, never wound up mattering. He never learned who, but that other had never arrived. In the weeks that passed since then, there had been no room for a third.

Now, looking at her 'dressed' in exactly that same manner, one spaghetti thin shoulder strap completely off, her left breast bare and again no panties in sight, he knew quite well who she had dressed for this time. "Surprise." She whispered, raising the temperature in the already quickly heating room another forty degrees.

She walked toward him slowly, enticingly, the sheer material fluttering about her as obscuring as thin scarlet steam. He had a passing thought to watch out for the fire sprinklers, but dismissed it with just about everything else. "I thought you'd like some 'company' when you got back." She said in quiet, searing tones, stepping around behind him. He was hard pressed not to grab for her as she passed, but she ran her fingertips along his shoulders as she stepped behind his chair.

"Oh, could I _ever_!" He could not remember the last time he had been so happy, so relieved, to see anyone, let alone the lovely woman who, for the past several weeks, had become more and more a part of his life.

"What was with the 'cloak-and-dagger' bit?" She asked, unknowingly repeating Archer.

"I didn't want Lt. Reed to know I was seeing the Captain." She started to massage his shoulders, her strong fingers digging into his tight muscles.

"Why not?"

"I was telling him that what I found could accuse my Chief of complicity to murder." She stopped for a moment.

"That really rots." She said, commiserating. Then she resumed her 'labors' with greater effort, forcing a groan from him. "What did he say?"

"What could he say?" He winced as she found a particularly hard spot. "This is a total mess."

"I wish I could make you feel better, to say something that could help," she said sympathetically, working on his neck, her hands wrapped about his throat, "but I'm guilty too."

He froze, particularly aware of her hands about his throat. "That's not damn funny!"

"I mean it." She released her 'grip' and leaned closer, his head on her chest so he was nestled between her breasts. He could see them, one barely covered and the other not, on either side of his head. She then bent down lower, trailing her warm breasts over his shoulders until her lips came to his ear. "I'm _guilty_." She whispered into his ear, her searing breath about a thousand degrees. "In fact…" She stood up and came around him, standing before him with her back to him. "… I've been very _bad_." She whispered hotly, looking back over her shoulder, licking her lips suggestively. "You should arrest me."

She crossed her wrists behind her back, her shapely bare rear just inches from his eyes. Her arms behind her back started to raise the hem even further, though she was half-uncovered already. "I think you should put me in restraints."

He smiled, closing his hand over her crossed wrists, standing up behind her, hearing her steamy sigh. "And just what's the _charge_?"

"Oh, breaking and entering." She whispered delightedly, stepping a half-step back into him, her wiggling posterior finding his interest in her. "Unlawful search." Finding just the right spot, she pressed back even more firmly against him. Though her hands were still 'trapped' behind her back, she managed to reach him and get a firm grip. "Assaulting a deadly weapon." She sighed volcanically, a quiet groan as his left hand came up her body to cup her bare breast. "Indecent exposure…" Her whisper seared the air.

"Hmmm."

"And if you're really _rough_…" she sighed, looking over her shoulder at him with a burning smile, coming up on her toes high enough to kiss him with liquid fire, "…you might have to throw in 'resisting arrest'."


	5. Confessions and Recollections

Chapter Five

Confessions and Recollections

Jonathan Archer was not a man who enjoyed mysteries, not the kind that got someone killed, and not aboard his ship. So when the question of what was happening in the night came up, it just overshadowed everything else. What was going on? Why had McCabe apparently visited Reed's quarters late in the night while everyone else on Alpha time was asleep? He firmly refused to put any explanation to it; that would only cloud his judgment. But he wanted answers, and he finally decided he was indeed not a patient man.

To maintain an unbiased position, he asked his third-in-command, Trip Tucker, to be present as well, but did not tell him why when he summoned the Security Chief to his Ready Room.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Reed inquired formally as the door opened. More than a hundred times, Archer had questioned this aspect of formality aboard Starships, and indeed in the Service itself. He had just signaled to the man not fifteen seconds earlier to come in. Archer would be more than happy never to hear that question again.

But then, thinking about it, he decided it was a legitimate one. "No, Malcolm, I didn't."

Reed looked at his Captain in barely concealed surprise. 'Then why call?' he wondered. He had called, hadn't he?

"But I have to." Archer concluded the thought. "Sit down, Malcolm."

When he was seated, and with Tucker leaning almost casually against the bulkhead nearby, Archer began what he had already decided was going to go down in his memory as his least favorite conversation.

x

"Malcolm, what have you learned so far?"

"Quite a lot, sir, but none of it is conclusive." He admitted, hating to do so. He always hated it when he had to admit that he did not have all the answers, and this time it showed as much as ever. "We have no definite leads as to who might have known Fr. Pineda or had a motive to kill him."

Archer tried to massage a pain in the side of his neck that had been building for hours, which ran all the way from his ear to the end of his shoulder, and showed not the slightest sign of easing. In fact, as his mood grew tenser, the pain was just getting steadily worse.

It was deep into the ship's 'late afternoon', at the tail end of Alpha shift, when under normal circumstances the 'main' crew would be standing down and going to dinner, but Archer had no appetite. All he had in his stomach was a knot.

x

"Malcolm, I'm going to be frank with you. I did not get any rest last night. I spent hours contemplating an unexpected decision, how I was going to choose which of two Priests, whom I hadn't even known until yesterday morning were coming, was going to join my crew. I finally put on my uniform _this_ morning with the anticipation that the biggest thing I was going to have to do today was to conduct some interviews, get feedback from my officers and make a decision.

"It's now about thirty hours later since Admiral Forrest laid all this in my lap; one of those Priests is dead and the other is the Prime Suspect; though evidence she didn't do it is mounting as fast as evidence that she did. I'm tired, really cranky, so I am going to ask you a simple question and I want a simple answer."

"I'll try to give you one." He promised, hoping he would have enough answers and evidence to be able to keep that promise.

"Here goes. Why is Mother McCabe's DNA in _your_ quarters, and why are there indications she was there prior to, and again possibly after, the time when Father Pineda was killed?"

x

Archer had read about a person going white in his face, but outside of a life-or-death combat situation he had never before seen it. But now he watched all the color drain from his friend's features, and he devoutly hoped he had not discovered the door to his own personal Hades.

It took the man many moments to answer, and when he did Archer could sense his friend had made a hard decision indeed. He'd always known Reed was a man who tried to keep his personal life an intensely private one. He now realized he was going to learn just where the other stood on the balance of privacy versus duty.

"She's … she's my … my Ex."

"_Wife_?" Trip asked, utterly failing to keep the astonishment out of his voice. Archer glanced back. In the mounting tension, had he actually forgotten the man was there?

"Fiancé. And I'd really appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourselves."

x

Archer had to admit this was the last thing he could have expected to hear. Trying to cover his surprise, he told his friend; "If this weren't a murder investigation, I'd give you what assurances I could. But you know I can't make any promises."

"I know, sir." Reed tried to keep a note of resignation out of his voice.

"What happened?" Tucker asked.

"If you must know, we were about four months from getting married when … we broke … when it broke off." They sensed he was hunting for wording that would assign no 'blame'. "I was Military, could see myself as nothing else. She was already deeply devoted to the Church; though by no means like she is now. We were in our very late 20's, and both of us saw that it … just wasn't going to work. We could either part as friends, or our lives would pull us in different directions." He sighed heavily, the pain of 'what might have been' clearly still heavy on his soul, despite the mask he would have them see.

"A year later I was out in space, and though I'd thought about her a lot, I haven't seen her until yesterday, and had never expected to." Archer remembered the woman's shaken reaction seconds after she'd boarded. He'd put it down to the stresses of a new space traveler. He realized now that he had been severely mistaken.

x

"We kept in touch, or tried to, but three days gradually became a week, then a fortnight, then a month. Then the day came when there just weren't any more letters." He tried to hide the pain in his tone as well as he could, and that not at all. "I guess we each looked at it as a special time in our lives that was over."

"So when you said you preferred Fr. Pineda here …"

He nodded sadly, not looking at either of them, not wanting to give them that window into his soul. He had to answer, but did not have to show them his heart… "Sometimes, when one has been … really hurt, one doesn't want to get into a situation where one can be hurt again. I lost her a long time ago. If I was going to … lose her again, I wanted it over quickly."

"And when she visited you?"

"I'd been … cold to her, when she came aboard, during the tour. I wasn't trying to be. I was trying to shield both our feelings – or at least mine… I hadn't realized how cold I was being…"

xxxx

"You couldn't sleep?" Malcolm asked. She looked at his bunk, the only indentation a small space in the middle.

"I see you couldn't either." He didn't answer. "We still have unfinished business." Still no answer. He was wearing pants and a blue tee shirt, but reached to put on a longer shirt. "You're still uncomfortable." He stopped, more uncomfortable with having been caught feeling uncomfortable after their long history together.

"You're not exactly casually dressed, either." He tried to keep the defensive tone out of his voice, but could not. He knew she knew him too well.

"Old 'habits' are hard to break." He did not smile at the tiny joke. She had put her raiment back on specifically because she had left her quarters, not because she had wanted to face Malcolm Reed this way. "I suppose I'll be spending my first few days 'establishing' myself. Whichever ship I wind up on, I'll probably be exclusively in 'uniform' publicly for at least a week."

"That's to be expected." He answered, trying for a non-committed tone. He finished buttoning the shirt, but did not tuck it in.

The silence weighed heavily in the air between them. It seemed to gather more weight every second that it grew.

"Talk to me. Please!"

"What would you have me say?"

"I wouldn't 'have you' say anything. But there must be something you want to say."

"We spoke earlier."

"We _talked around_ each other earlier."

Uncomfortable, and uncomfortably trying not to show how uncomfortable he was, he tucked the shirt into his pants.

"Concerned about your appearance?" She asked, trying to get some reaction – any reaction – out of him.

"It would be … inappropriate … to be with you in private less than fully dressed."

"I'm hardly cloistered." He looked away. "You've got that cute little birthmark on your -." He spun back to her, and she cut her voice off at the look of anger in his eyes. Actual anger. At _her_! "I'm sorry. That was inappropriate. I just wanted to remind you that I'm still the person you knew."

"No, you're not."

Her eyebrows shot up. "I'm not?"

"No. You're … you're …" He waved his hand uncertainly at her. "You're a Priest."

She could barely keep from sighing. "And that makes all the difference between us?"

"Shouldn't it?"

"No. If I were to take this raiment off you would find no surprises at all. I am the same woman, the same person, you've –."

"Please, don't."

x

She was taken back. Don't what? She decided she was actually afraid to ask. She shook her head sadly. "We shouldn't fight."

"I always knew it would come to this." He said, indicating the clothing she wore. "You were always so … devout. I knew it would end like this."

"End like this? Whenever I imagined our getting back together, there was never anything of 'ending' about it."

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what? Become a Priest?" For a moment he couldn't answer, knowing to follow the thought would be to hurt her, and he did not want to do that. But he couldn't pull the thought back. Finally he nodded reluctantly. "You always knew I would. But I never looked at it as something that would come between us."

"There's no room for me in your life. You're married now to God, to your Church. They're your husband now. There's no more room in your life for me." She was surprised by how much pain there was in his words, pain that couldn't stay hidden behind his mask.

"Oh, Malcolm, that's just not so!" He didn't answer, didn't look at her. "You know that's nonsense. You're quoting ancient history."

"I'm 'quoting' things as they are."

"No. You know better." This was an old conversation for them. She knew he knew the truth, but repeated it again. "Not even the Romans cling to their old decree of celibacy. Clergy in every religion, every denomination, can marry, have families. It's encouraged." She knew he knew all that. He was not responding to any 'rule'. He was responding to his own inability to deal with it. And as she watched him she couldn't believe the look in his eyes. He was rejecting her words, rejecting her. She decided to try a different track.

x

"After the post-atomic horror all denominations suffered. Worldwide there was an average of 1 clergy for 3,800 laity. All the churches had to take a good, hard look at themselves if they were going to survive as effective forces. This is all old news."

"I know."

"Then what's clogging your jets?"

"You're not just some … Priest. You're … you."

"Last I checked." She tried to say it lightly, to ease his tension. The look he gave her was anything but relaxed. "Malcolm Reed, are you _ashamed_ of what we had?"

"No!" But she realized his answer was too forceful, too quick.

"Then what?" He couldn't answer. "Do you see what we had, before I joined the Order, as … as a sin?" His lack of an answer was even more profound. "Oh, Malcolm."

"I can't help what I feel. What I am." He wanted to move away, but the quarters were just too small. She was still by the door, had not set a foot deeper into his room, but she was still too close.

x

Patricia McCabe wanted to ask if he still loved her, but part of her was deeply afraid to hear the answer. She knew her own answer, with all her heart, but was suddenly afraid to hear his. "Did you ever think we would meet again?" She asked quietly, wishing she knew how to ease the tension that filled the room like a warm choking flood.

"Not like this."

"Then like what?" He didn't answer. "I was as surprised as you were."

"It was a bit of a shock." He felt a smile tugging at his lips, and wished he could give in to it.

"I had no idea you were aboard Enterprise."

"Would you have come if you'd known?"

"Even faster!"

"Are you happy with what you found?"

She stopped, suddenly aware that she had no idea how to answer the question. She shook her head. "I don't _know_ what I've found. Your plates are polarized better than your ship's."

"What would you have me do?"

"I'd have you let me _in_." She was still barely a step into the room, still in his closed doorway. "What is it? Is it this collar?" She reached up to her throat, but he shook his head. "Then what?"

"Whatever you wear makes no difference. I can't go back. I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I'm … uncomfortable with some of the choices you've made."

"Some?"

"This choice." He hated to say it, hated to see the look in her eyes. "It feels like … like there's a wall between us."

"It's not meant to. It doesn't have to be. Certainly I don't see it as such."

"I do." He answered with a tone of bitter frustration.

"You knew the Path I was on. That was never going to change."

"I know. It's just …" He didn't continue. The silence hung in the air between them. It hung for so long.

x

"They call you the 'Armory Officer'." She said softly.

"Yes." He was surprised, and wondered where this was going.

"On the bridge, you handle the weapons. When your ship goes into battle, the Captain commands it, but you control it."

"In defense of my shipmates."

"I'm not contesting that. But I am also uncomfortable with some of the choices _you've_ made." He sighed feelingly. "Oh, let's not snipe at each other. We shouldn't do this. We should be _rejoicing_ that we are together again."

"I want to."

"Then do it." He took a step closer, but then couldn't continue.

"I can't."

"Why?"

He tried to answer, tried with all his might, but finally turned away from her, frustrated with himself.

x

Patricia watched his back for several moments, praying for the guidance to know what to say.

"Do you remember when we were children, the archival entertainment programs from the early 20th Century? We used to watch them mostly when we visited your grandfather. Animated paintings on clear cells, in the days before CGI?" He turned back to her, uncertain where this new divergence was going. He remembered she'd often had that effect on him, that talent of attracting him by distracting him.

"'Porky Pig' was your favorite. That character had no confidence, a tremendous impediment, and in the end always overcame every adversity." He nodded. "In one story they had a retelling of the 'Hatfield/McCoy' feud. I don't remember what they called it, but he was in love with a girl pig from the other side.

"After the feud was over, he had such high hopes for their relationship, but in his lack of confidence he scaled down his hopes from dating through walking together through holding hands to saying 'hello'."

"I remember. But why that memory?"

"Because, Malcolm, I've been on board your ship for over six hours, and you haven't even said 'hello'."

"We _kissed_, for heaven's sake!"

"No, I kissed you. In hopes of getting through that polarized plating." He turned away. She shook her head sadly. "And I still haven't managed it."

x

"You can't even look at me, can you?" McCabe said, trying to keep her tone level, painfully aware that she stood just inside the door of his room, that she had made it no further in. It seemed like a metaphor for her entire day.

"I can look." He replied, turning back to her. "But things are not what they were. We're not what we were."

"No, we're not. A lot of years have gone by, but we are still the same people. Can you stand there and tell me you don't have _any_ feelings?"

"I have feelings." He said intently. "More than I _want_. More than I can _deal_ with. But whatever I feel, whatever you feel, we have to put those things _aside_."

"Why?" He wanted to answer, but couldn't. "We might not be able. If I'm chosen to serve this ship, we'll be together every day."

"We won't be."

Something in his words chilled her. "You sound certain. That's the Captain's decision, isn't it?"

"With input from his Officers."

She stared at him, stunned; feeling as if he'd crossed the room and slapped her. "Are you saying you'll 'vote' _against_ me?" She asked quietly, unable to raise her voice.

"Not against you."

"But not 'for' me. You'll choose George." He couldn't answer, not when the only two choices were either to lie or to hurt.

She couldn't say anything. She was surprised how much it _hurt_. After their decades together, and then their years apart, she had wondered what it would be like to be together with this man again - forever. She'd wondered what it would be like to be married to him, as they'd been so close to doing. Four months from the date was when they'd 'broken it off', and the pain was not as sharp then as it was now.

"Just tell me one thing?" She tried to keep a pleading tone from her voice. If it was indeed over, she would not have him know that pain. He didn't answer. "After all these years, have all your feelings for me faded?"

He closed his eyes, unable to let her see the pain in them. "Reverend -."

"_Patti_!" She insisted. When he opened his eyes, he could see the pain in hers. She barely kept her voice under control, though it trembled just short of breaking. "I was 'Patti' to you, through more than I can remember, for more years than we've been apart. We were together Primary school through College, then you to the Academy and me on my Path; but for more years than we've been apart. I was 'Patti-Cake' to you, 'Malki'."

"Please. Don't call me that." He could barely keep his own voice level; to hide a torrent of pain behind a mask.

"It's who you are, Malki. Or is it who you _were_?"

He closed the distance between them, right up to her. But he could not answer. He could not speak at all because one word would reveal the pain he could not hide. Finally, after an eternity, looking into her blue eyes, he managed to get the words out through a throat infinitely tight. "It's who I can never be."

"But is it who you _want_ to be?" He tried to answer, tried so very hard, but his throat was so tight. He wanted her so badly. He wanted her _back_ in his life. He wanted her as his _wife_. Finally he could only nod. "Then _be_ it!"

He tried to answer. He wanted her. _Needed_ her. He finally managed to force his voice through the tightness strangling him. "I _can't_."

x

"Well, then I'm going to tell you something you are not going to want to hear." She said softly, trying to keep her own emotions from shattering her voice, trying with all her strength, all her years of training, to keep her tears hidden. "I have never stopped loving you, Malki Reed, even though until today I was sure I would never lay eyes on you again. You are my first, my deepest love. For the best, the greatest part of my life we were together. You came to mean everything in the world to me. You were to be my husband and I was to be your wife. God has granted us a second chance to be together, and I'm truly sorry you will not see that. I did not think we would ever see each other again in this life, but I have not stopped loving you, and I never will stop loving you."

He closed his eyes, more to hide the pain than to avoid looking at her. The last thing he saw was that high shirt collar of white encircling her throat, and her words of love and hope gave him such longing for the life he knew with all his heart and soul that he could never have, that he knew it was wrong to _try_ to have. "Please." He whispered, unable to keep his voice steady.

"Anything!" She whispered fervently. All he could see was the darkness.

"Please leave."

x

There was a long, agonizing moment of absolute silence. It seemed like half a minute before he heard the sound of the door at her back. When it slid shut again, and he finally opened his eyes, she was gone.

xxxx

"Malcolm, I can understand, and sympathize with, what you're going through." Jonathan Archer assured his friend. He felt like he had invaded something he'd never wanted to know, had no real business knowing. And he hated himself that he had to ask one more question. "The computer records show the door opening a third time."

"I almost went after her." He confessed. "I tried, but I couldn't."

"But you realize how it looks."

"I know, but that's not how it happened."

"I realize that. But I hope I don't have to tell you what this also means."

"You don't, sir. I've already thought of it." Indeed, ever since he'd realized that he had no idea of the time or duration of their 'conversation', he could not get his mind off one thing. As confident as he was in her innocence; his choice to vote for Pineda would seem, to _others_, to be a most powerful motive.


	6. Painful Answers

Chapter Six

Painful Answers

Malcolm Reed walked the length, breadth and depth of Enterprise for almost four hours in such a black abstraction that anyone who saw him gave him a very wide berth indeed, avoiding him as far as the corridors allowed. He did not know how long it was before he found himself again on D Deck, for the last of an unknown number of times, his mind a maelstrom of conflicting emotions and stresses. It was with some surprise that he discovered his undirected feet had led him to a stop in front of Patricia McCabe's quarters. Taking it as serendipity, or at least his mind working on a level below his willing consciousness, he tried to bury his feelings, to push back the memories, and finally pressed the annunciation button. A few seconds later the door slid open.

He had expected to see her as he had every moment of the previous day, dressed in her Clerical 'uniform' of royal blue shirt with white collar and black trousers. He was surprised to see her wearing a medium length yellow dress. For a moment he was stopped, unable to speak. Seeing her like this, it was as if the past few years had not happened.

He thought, somewhat irrelevantly, that the dress seemed to go well with her long chestnut hair before he caught himself, reprimanding himself for such thoughts.

"Yes?" She asked after a few seconds.

"I – I'm sorry; I didn't mean to stare. It's just, well, a bit unexpected."

"Do you like it?" She asked softly, hoping that now he might be a bit less uncomfortable than he'd been the previous night.

"Yes. You, well, you look … like a woman." As soon as the words were out of his mouth he could tell in her slowly parting lips, in the change in her eyes, in the subtle change in her body as she stood there, just how monumentally stupid he'd been.

"Oh."

"I – I mean-!"

She backed in, stepping aside, her emotions closed off. "Won't you come in?"

Rather than say anything as stupid again, he accepted her invitation, trying to keep his own mask in place.

When he was in, the first thing he did was glance about, taking in the entire room, as was usual for him, the behavior ingrained into him and every other Security Officer he'd ever known. He noticed, for instance, the closet standing open. The left side held 9 royal blue shirts with white collars, black trousers hanging down from within. The right side was given over to more secular clothing. The left side contained considerably more garments.

He turned to her with a small smile. "Looks rather like my closet."

"I dare say. We each have our 'uniforms'." The coolness, the careful reserve of her tone, got his attention better than any other. "Are you going to question me further now? I'd give you answers if I had them."

"I'm not here to question you. I'm … I'm here to…" He knew what he wanted. Why did the words just trail off before they got to his tongue?

"To what, Malcolm?" She asked in that same carefully reserved tone. "Please, tell me. Because I've had my heart torn out of my chest three times already. I don't think I'm ready for a fourth."

"I'm not here to hurt you. Neither of us wants to hurt the other."

"No, we don't." He started to look past her. "I didn't kill him, Malki."

He stopped, looking at her intently. "I know you didn't."

"Then why are you here? Are you Lieutenant Reed right now, or are you Malki?" For an instant, she realized she could see through his mask. She didn't want it to come back. "You see, I've lost a very good friend, and I'm not sure if you can tell that but it really hurts. I remember there was a time when you would come over to comfort me." She tried very hard to keep her voice steady.

He started to answer, but could not think of anything to say.

"It took hours to get a 'hello' from you. Now I'm really having a bad day, and I'm not sure just how much more I can take. My friend is dead and they think I did it. I'm alone among strangers, really miserable and depressed. I had hoped for your understanding." She allowed the imploring she felt into her tone, trying very hard and failing to keep the tears she felt from her eyes, but feeling her voice break. "If it's a struggle to get a 'hello' from you, just what would it take to get a _hug_?"

He stepped over to her and took her in his arms, but he still could not let himself relax. Though she wore a yellow dress, he could not get the Clerical attire out of his mind. That was the image that was the real Patricia McCabe for him now. After a few moments together, she could no longer bear his tension and stiffness: "This is worse than nothing."

"I sorry."

"I remember what it was like in your arms. I've dreamt about it for –." He let her go, pulling away. "I'm sorry."

He turned from her, taking a step away. In the small room, it was like a kilometer. She brushed her eyes, her hands coming away moist. "God, Malcolm, what's become of us?"

"I just… I don't know."

"Well, will you answer me _one_ question? Just one? And all I want is a simple 'yes' or 'no' Nothing elaborate, nothing else. Please, just a 'yes' or 'no'."

"What is it?"

"Do you love me?"

"Yes."

x

Patricia McCabe could not believe how much tension, how much heartache, vanished at hearing that word. It was like stepping from Hell into Heaven in one moment. "You do love me?"

"Yes, I love you." She started to rush into his arms. "But it's wrong."

She froze, barely a step taken, feeling as if he'd punched her in the stomach. "Wrong? _Why_?"

"Because … because we _can't_ be together. Not that way. It'll only hurt us."

He'd added a slap to that punch. Desperately she prayed for the words to say to make it all different.

"Malcolm, if yesterday I boarded this ship looking like I do now, and you did not see me in my raiment until this minute, would it have been different?"

"Yes."

"But you've _seen_ me on Earth in virtually everything there is, over more than twenty years. And you saw me _out_ of a lot of things too. In all that, in all this time, you've known my _heart_. You've known the _real_ me."

She saw in his face, that face she had learned to read so well, that he was not denying her words. But she could also see the conflict within him. And she knew she had pushed as far as she could. "Malcolm, please do me one favor? Don't answer. Just think about it, okay? Just think about it?"

"Okay."

x

But in the silence that ensued, he realized he had no idea what there was left to say. Finally, looking at her in the pale yellow dress, he had an idea. "Would you like some dinner?" She was so deeply surprised at this turn that she stared at him, unable to know what to say.

"Dinner?"

"It's nearly 2000 hours. I just thought you might be hungry."

She smiled, amazed that she could. "Malki Reed, are you asking me out?"

"I guess I am." She was about to accept until she remembered. The dress might be good for the privacy of her quarters, but if she was going out in public, there were the _standards_ of her profession to be observed. And yet;

"I don't want to change."

"I wish you wouldn't."

She smiled, casting off expectations in favor of seeing the chance to get her life back into some kind of control, or at least back to where she so desperately needed it to be.. "In that case, I'd love some dinner."

xxx

Within the hour, Archer and Tucker were back in Sick Bay, receiving from Phlox what was interesting news indeed.

"Forensic tests on the knife turned up some interesting things." The Denobulan reported. "It is indeed a common knife from the Mess Hall. Chef takes very good care of them, cleaning them, sharpening as needed. However, it takes extraordinary measures to completely remove DNA and other traces, even from metal." He realized he was starting to sound like an instructor in a lecture hall, but once begun he found he was on a 'roll'.

"There are certain chemicals not normally used in the cleansing of silverware, such as bleach, that would do it, but on the whole neither fingerprints nor DNA are completely eradicated by ordinary methods, except by many repetitions of those methods. For instance, Security has identified seven sets of superimposed fingerprints of people who used the knife, and traces of eleven others, including you, Captain."

"Who's were the most recent prints?"

"Now that was interesting. They were Father Pineda's own."

"All right, let's assume he was not asleep, that he at least tried to prevent himself being stabbed or try to pull the knife out. If so, how much time would he have?" Phlox shook his head.

"Not long at all. The blade severed the aorta; loss of blood pressure to the brain would have been immediate and catastrophic. He'd have been unconscious in less than three seconds."

"Time enough to grab the handle, but nothing more?" Phlox shrugged; a casting of arms from his sides.

"I suppose so."

"All right, that explains his prints. Maybe." Archer concluded with that proviso. None of the 'evidence' thus far had pointed in the directions that they'd expected. "Whose prints and traces do his superimpose?"

"Crewman Mark Gallagher." Phlox reported evenly.

Trip shook his head. "Mark was on duty in Engineering, Gamma shift. He and Ensign Watkins were together. I've already talked to them."

"Talk to Watkins again. Was Gallagher in his sight all during the time from 0200 to 0230?"

"Aye, sir."

"Were Mother McCabe's prints or DNA on it?"

"No."

Archer realized he was actually relieved. He hadn't believed they would be; had not really wanted to. It was good to be reassured. At least there was one piece of 'good news'. "All right, go over that knife again." He told Phlox. "It's our only real piece of evidence. I want it to be able to stand up and sing by the time we're done."

"Yes, sir."

xxx

It was 2200, two hours before the start of Gamma Shift, when Crewmen Watkins and Gallagher reported to their Commander in Engineering. He knew he could have sent for them at any time and they would have reported, but to rouse them from sleep would not be part of the casual tone he'd intended to establish. He hoped that, the more normal he acted, but more at ease the men would be and the more revealing their responses would be.

But within about a minute, he had changed his mind. Sometimes the direct approach was the best one. "Gentlemen, you were both on duty here last evening."

"Yes, sir." Watkins answered.

"Did either of you leave Engineering, for any reason at all, between 0200 and 0230?"

"No, sir." Gallagher replied.

Looking into the man's eyes, Tucker hid a satisfied smile. Gallagher was his absolute favorite across the poker table; and not simply because the other did not know how to play. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, Gallagher's were as revealing as the bay windows in a department store.

Further, he had not needed to depend on either of their testimonies. The computer log reported that the two had been going through the lengthy checklist of all the department's systems. This 'checklist' was a visual and hands-on confirmation of the system diagnostics, and usually took two people about two hours to complete. Last night it had taken two hours, nineteen minutes, with three anomalies located and adjusted.

"Mark, when was the last time you were in the Mess Hall?"

"Last evening at dinner, about 23:40." Tucker looked at him curiously.

"You had _dinner_ at 23:40?"

"Well, technically, it was breakfast. It was Sue Harrison's dinner."

"Ah."

"Sir," Gallagher asked, concerned, "you don't think that either of us –?" Tucker held up his hand.

"We're checking _everyone_, Mark."

"Yes, sir."

"Someone on this ship seems to have known Fr. Pineda and had a reason to kill him. And we'll find that person."

"Sir, who could kill a _Priest_?" Watkins' tone showed that, even hours after the fact, it was still so appalling as to be unimaginable to the man.

"We're going to find out." Tucker assured him.

x

He wished, however, that he himself could be as assured. As disturbing as the thought was that someone capable of murder was serving with them, someone he had doubtlessly worked shoulder-to-shoulder with as a comrade or a friend, there was a worse thought cropping up.

Reed and his Security Force, Archer and T'Pol, Phlox and he, along with others had, systematically, been eliminating one potential suspect after another. Despite Malcolm's testimony, with the possible exception of Mother Patricia McCabe, there was virtually no one left.

xxx

Malcolm Reed was sitting in the dimly lit Mess Hall, the lighting all over the ship slightly reduced for the ship's 'night'. It was 23:30 hours, and Gamma shift was just finishing up their 'breakfasts' preparatory to going on duty. The room was not crowded, but he and McCabe were not alone either.

Malcolm found that, if he pushed his reserve and concerns down hard enough, often enough, he could actually force himself to forget his tensions long enough to have a good time. Every time they crept up, he would 'remind' himself that he was having dinner with an exceptionally beautiful woman who was an old and dear friend, and he could _make_ himself forget his reservations.

In fact, he realized with a full measure of surprise, he had forgotten them for over three hours!

This lasted right up until the time that a young man approached the table. "Begging your pardon, sir?"

"Yes?" Reed tried to keep a casual tone, to keep behind the mask what he thought of the interruption, polite though it had been.

"Sir…" He looked at Patricia. "Ma'am, am I right that you are one of the Priests who came aboard yesterday?"

She nodded, extending her hand. "Patricia McCabe."

He took it. "Tim Anopoli, Computer Control. I just wanted to extend my condolences. I imagine it was quite a shock."

"Yes, it was."

"We only got to chat for a little while, but he seemed very nice. I was sorry to hear about what happened."

"Thank you. I –."

"Just a minute." Reed interrupted. "When did you speak to him?" At the same instant McCabe realized she had not met the man during the 'whirlwind' tour of the ship the previous evening.

"Last night, here in the Mess. I came in; he was by the portal, 'stargazing' as it were. We talked for a few minutes; then he left."

"About what time was that?"

"Oh, it had to be around quarter after two, or thereabouts."

Reed and McCabe exchanged looks of mounting dread.

"I think we started with a horrible assumption."


	7. Resolution

Chapter Seven

Resolution

Jonathan Archer sat on the edge of his bed; giving Porthos a 'good night' rub behind his long ears, and then reached for the light switch when the door annunciator sounded instead. Restraining a foul opinion of a crewman who would ring his Captain's bell at three minutes after one in the morning, he got up, pulled on his robe, and opened the door.

He was glad that he had remembered the robe when the late night visitors turned out to be Malcolm Reed and an out-of-uniform Patricia McCabe. "Malcolm," he began tiredly, leaning against the door frame, "it's late. You'd _better_ be here to tell me you've solved the case!"

"Sir, we've solved the case." Reed replied accommodatingly.

Archer found he was no longer tired.

x

A half hour later, he also could think of nothing to say. Of all the answers he'd expected, this had not been among them. But he had to admit it was the only one that fit all of the facts. "This is horrible."

"Yes, sir."

He looked at McCabe, seated in the chair beside Malcolm. In her pale yellow dress she seemed so different. "I'm sorry. I wish I could know what to say. Did you …"

"Have any warning?" He nodded. "Sadly enough, I did. And I should have seen it; but this affair just shocked me so badly… In hindsight I could see it, and I'm truly sorry I couldn't see it ahead of time. On this voyage, he seemed so relaxed, so at ease, actually far more than usual. He was always personable, always easy and outgoing. This time, he was even more so, actually devoid of the usual minor stresses that I've seen in him. That should have tipped me off, but I didn't see it. I was absorbed in my own concerns, my own preparations for serving either here or aboard the Sevigny. And since arriving here, I've been … distracted."

Archer realized this admission was hard for her, considering the combinations of her training and knowledge of the man, but after the fact… He kept from saying anything. To ask if she could have prevented it would have been cruel. "I understand he made the decision, and likely changed out of his Clerical garb to preserve them, but …"

"Why?" He nodded. "In the past hour I think I've asked myself that a hundred times. And hard as it is to admit, there are times that we just have to accept the worst possible answer in situations like this. And that is that sometimes we just never know."

"Never?"

She shrugged. "We can extend the investigation back to Earth, interview friends and loved ones, get hold of his personal files and journal; we may learn something from all that. But I have the feeling, which I can't prove other than as a feeling, that this time we are not going to find easy answers."

For a long moment there was quiet as the three, deep in their own private thoughts, tried to come to terms with the past hour. "All right," Archer said finally, "Malcolm, make your report. In the morning I want to be able to conclude this."

"Yes, sir."

xxx

A very unrested Captain Archer entered the Mess Hall about six hours later. His uniform was the only thing about him that seemed refreshed. Across the room, at a pair of tables pushed together with space for eight, Reed and McCabe, now in their respective 'uniforms', sat with Trip Tucker, Travis Mayweather, Hoshi Sato and Liz Cutler. He approached the table, noticing that none of those present seemed any more interested in 'chatting' as he did. They were gathered for companionship, for mutual comforting, not for conversation. He sat down, exchanging quiet greetings.

It was obvious from the expressions on the faces of everyone at the table that the news had been spread. "Did anyone get much sleep last night?" If anyone among the 'investigating team' had, he or she was not going to be so gauche as to admit it.

"It's absolutely horrible." Liz Cutler summed up the feelings of all at the table. "We're just all trying to take it in. I think a lot of the evidence was leading this way, we just wouldn't see it."

"No." Reed confirmed. "We started with the assumption he was murdered; the door use became someone going in and coming out, and we kept researching from that angle."

"The DNA evidence clearly showed only one set of prints on the knife since it was last cleaned." Cutler concluded. "We just kept digging beyond the point where we should have reasonably stopped."

"You've confirmed everything?" Archer asked, feeling he did not even have to say it. If Reed had not been certain, the man would not have said anything at all.

"Yes, sir. Everything from the eyewitness testimony to the angle of the blade. It all fits."

"Yes." He turned to McCabe. "Again, I'd like to offer our condolences. And, frankly, our apologies."

"Thank you, Captain."

x

"Normally…" He began, feeling a bit uncomfortable, but pushed the discomfort aside. "Normally I'd wait for a more appropriate moment for this, but we're due to rendezvous with the Sevigny in a little more than a day. Situations have changed, I have to contact Starfleet and make particular arrangements, and there simply isn't _going to be_ an appropriate moment." Even with that explanation, something felt deeply wrong about saying it now. But he was right; there would not _be_ an 'appropriate moment'.

"So, if you are willing, I'd like to offer you a berth aboard Enterprise."

She looked at him with mild apprehension. "Captain, I would." She tried not to glance at Reed. "But I've come to understand there are some … reservations. I could not stay unless the decision is unanimous." Around the table, all nodded. All but one person.

All eyes went to that person, and Patricia McCabe realized she was holding her breath. Reed looked very uncomfortable. "Well, Malcolm?" Archer prompted.

Reed looked into McCabe's eyes, and slowly a smile came to his lips. "It's unanimous."

McCabe turned to Archer, trying to keep the vast relief she felt out of her voice. "Then I accept."

x

Over the pleased welcomes from all assembled, another crewmember arrived and took the last remaining seat between Trip and Hoshi. "Galyas!" Tia exclaimed. "Sorry to late I be." Rather than the uniform she never wore except when on 'Away' missions, she wore a long, flowing garment of floral colors and designs.

Liz Cutler spoke to McCabe: "I'd like to introduce one of my associates from Life Sciences. Tia Anlor, Reverend Patricia McCabe."

"I'm happy to meet you." McCabe said, reaching out to shake her hand.

"Forward looked have I you meet to." Tia responded in her characteristic fractured syntax. Patricia blinked, not being sure she'd heard the golden complexioned woman properly. She decided she hadn't, that she was just more tired than she'd thought.

"Reverend McCabe has just accepted posting as our new Chaplain." She turned to McCabe. "You said earlier that there is a Service this morning?"

"Yes, in memory of Father Pineda."

"Of your world am I nyasi. Permissible it be that I attend may is?" Liz tried to suppress a smile as McCabe struggled briefly to descramble the sentences. The woman still wasn't quite sure she had heard her correctly, or if she was indeed far more shaken by the past day than she'd thought.

"Yes. Yes, of course."

"Stick with Jim and I." Liz told Tia. "We'll guide you through it; tell you when to do what."

"Ealyiis. I to dresna like would."

McCabe looked at her even more curiously, certain she was missing something.

x

"With all due respect to the dead'," Reed said, "this entire incident is something my father used to call, in the Navy, a 'commfu'.

"What's that?" McCabe asked. She was very familiar, of course, with his family, but knew little of Naval terms.

"A complete, monumental fu –" he noticed the number of women in the small group and bit the word off. "-up."

Tia looked at him curiously. "What a 'fu-up' is?"

McCabe tried to restrain a smile as Reed looked uncomfortably at the Auran, having no idea how to answer.

"I'll explain later." Trip, seated next to her, promised. She looked at him, then turned away, disgusted.

Hoshi, on her other side, whispered very softly to give the young woman some privacy as the main conversation continued. "Suur kaar sei?" What wrong is? She whispered in Auran.

" All times of he will later explain says? " Tia whispered in her native language in turn. " Waiting I am still for 'later' ."

"Qi saf sei? Why that is? "

She shrugged. " Times we together get; distracted some of those by other things we become. " Hoshi had no doubts about the nature of their 'distractions'.

"Ka; saf ua buld _tuvil_ pureq ua zin sei. Well; that as much _your_ fault as his is. "

Tia smiled. "Dresnaquli. I know. " But then her eyes lightened in realization and she turned to the others, breaking into the on-going conversation, switching back to English. "Kaslier Reed, is 'fu-up' same you say as when of an 'up cock' you speak?" Reed looked about the group uncomfortably; but no one really seemed to want to help him. Archer rubbed his lips, struggling to keep from showing an incipient smile.

"A – a 'cock up'?" He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I guess so." He could especially not meet McCabe's eyes, something she was very much aware of and was enjoying immensely.

"Tia?" Hoshi spoke up aloud this time to save her human friend. "Do you remember our conversations about 'appropriate discretion'?"

"Daai." She answered with a smile. But the she stopped, realizing the connection. "Something kaar, um, 'wrong' I said?"

"Oh, yeah!" Liz agreed emphatically, though still unable to repress a grin. Tia looked about the small group; then down, unable to meet any of their eyes.

"Oh." She said in a tiny voice.

x

McCabe, not wanting to be the cause of the young woman's distress, turned to Archer; making sure her voice carried through the table. "Captain, with your permission, I would like to set the time of the first Service for 11:00 this morning."

"No problem. Is there anything you need?" She looked about the room.

"May I set up a table over there?" She pointed to the middle of the wall directly opposite the doors. "It won't be a proper Altar; I'll have to see about arrangements for that, though I do have a 'traveling stone' which will go under the altar cloth. I have all my supplies, including plenty of wine and wafers. In fact, come to it I have two sets of everything." She said, for a moment distant, her tone regretful, but then she forcibly turned her attention away from that to the practical arrangements, her voice regaining its strength. "There should be chairs arranged in rows on either side of a central aisle, facing front. I'll need something that can be used as a Lectern for the Bible Readings. It should be set up on the left side of an isolated area about seven to ten feet deep facing the room, and I'll need a single chair against that side wall between the Lectern and the corner. Also, if at all possible, is there a room I can use as a 'Sacristy'; a room where I can dress for the Service?"

"No problem. You can use my Mess." He said, indicating the door to the side, near the main doors.

"Thank you. Now, as to participants…"

xxx

Three hours later, Patricia McCabe stood in the small Captain's Mess adjacent to the main room, just finishing buttoning the last of thirty fastenings on the lightweight black Cassock, which covered her from neck to ankle, the lowermost garment of her liturgical vestments. She let the garment fall to its full length. Folded on the table before her were the several other vestments she would put on in their turn. She was just about to reach for the next one when she stopped, again struck by the fact that, though she now served this ship, it might well not have been hers. It should most reasonably have been George Pineda's, and she felt as if she had 'inherited' it by default, but it did not seem like hers.

She was about to go into the outer room, which was even now being converted by her directions into a place wherein to celebrate the first Mass of the Lenten Season. But despite the welcome she had been given, and the certification that her posting was official, it still seemed just a 'borrowed' posting. It might well have been Pineda's; in which case she would now be preparing to leave on the Sevigny tomorrow morning, but by God's will she was on Enterprise. And despite her prayers, she still had to wonder if she would really belong.

She tried to cast off these doubts as the work of 'Old Nick', sent to undermine her, but she could not easily do so. Doubling the intensity of her vesting prayers, she reached for the Amice spread upon the table. But before she touched it, there was a short signal from the door on her right. "Who's there?" She called, surprised by the interruption. She remembered specifically mentioning to the Captain that once she was in the improvised Sacristy she was not to be disturbed. The door slid open, revealing Malcolm Reed on the other side. She could see, in the first second before he schooled his eyes, a restrained apprehension.

"May I come in?" He asked, uncertainly. She smiled.

"Of course." She said, as casually as if she were not breaking her own most obdurate rule. He stepped in, the door closing behind him. His eyes quickly passed over the various white and purple vestments spread across the table in their turns to her as she stood before him in the long garment of unrelieved black. "How are you?" She asked in her most friendly/casual manner.

"I'm fine." He answered, looking at her like he'd never really seen her before. She realized just then that he never had, at least not like this. He looked as uncomfortable as ever around her. "I just – I just wanted to say … good luck."

"Thank you. And, thank you for voting for me."

"Don't mention it." He looked like he wanted to say more, but after a few seconds he did not, and she reached for the Amice spread out on the table. The large square cotton cloth was attached to two very long ties on two corners, and this side she folded once over, then back, then picked it up and draped it over her head to cover her long chestnut hair, the long rectangle covering her completely from forehead back. The two ties crossed her chest, then behind her back to tie waist high in front. She looked at him; he was still looking at her as if this were a new sight – as indeed for him it was.

He had just about gotten used to her 'working attire', or so he told himself forcefully. But looking at her with her head covered in white over a long black cassock, only her face visible, he had to finally admit he was not used to it at all.

"Did you want to say something?" She asked, breaking his introspective thoughts.

"Yes. Er, the Captain wanted you to know he's called 'All Stop' and 'Shift Down'."

"Thank you." She reached for her Alb, a long white garment which she put on over the Cassock, buttoning it at her neck. Now she was covered in white from hair to ankles, and still he was silent. Finishing the appropriate vesting prayer, she looked up at him, having waited as long as she could for him to finish. "What does that mean?" She asked, breaking his stare.

"You look like an Ang-." He breathed; then stopped his careless thought with sharp effort, forcing himself back on track. "Oh. That means we've stopped moving. Our thrusters are keeping us at computer controlled 'Station', all motion stopped. It also means that, with the exception of absolutely essential systems, the crew is standing down; off duty. It should be … quite a crowd."

x

McCabe bit her lip, trying not to show her nervousness. She had not missed his almost praise, but in that moment it was nearly lost behind his concluding words. 'Quite a crowd'. But was she serving for Pineda instead of …? She was dedicating this Service in his memory, but should it have been…?

"Thank you." She reached for the Cincture, a white cotton rope about seven feet long, which was halved, crossed through and then bound about her waist in a complex arrangement that left only a foot of each end hanging at her left hip. When she finished her prayer, he was still staring at her. She restrained herself from pointing it out.

"Is there … anything you need?" He asked, seemingly to force himself to say _something_.

'You mean other than to know where we stand?' She thought, trying not to let the question show on her face, hard though it was. 'You mean if I'm your acknowledged ex-fiancé or if we are to pretend to the entire crew that there was never anything between us?' She refrained from asking this either. She never _ever_ wanted to know the answer.

"Not really. Your Ensign Anderson tells me she has the music we'll need in the computer. Commander Tucker is doing the Old Testament, Captain Archer the Psalm, you're doing the Epistle – thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"I don't have a Server but I've managed. We learn to adjust." For a moment her mind flashed on the vision of Reed in black Cassock and white half-length Cotta; though more likely it would have to be one of her spare Albs because she did not have a Cotta in her supplies.

Malcolm did not know the reason for her sudden grin, and wasn't sure he wanted to know.

x

She reached for the large purple Chasuble, draping it over her head where it hung low before and behind her, covering her almost to her knees. The chasuble was purple, suitable to the first Sunday of Lent. At chest height it was embroidered with a golden crown within which, at an angle, was a red cross. That was the only ornamentation on it except for the orphreys, or upright and upward reaching bands of deeper purple, which went from neck to hem and seemed to reach upward like the two arms of a 'Y' from the cross and crown to her shoulders. The same ornamentation was duplicated in back.

She took the Stole, a long, folded purple band about seven feet long, kissed the folded middle and draped it over her shoulders to hang down before her almost to the hem of the Chasuble. It was embroidered at middle behind her neck, and then about a foot down either side, with smaller crosses and crowns.

Last, she pulled back the white amice from her head, letting it gather behind her neck, over the stole like a faux hood, and pulled free her long hair.

"Everything look all right?" She asked Malcolm. His mouth was open, but only his expression gave any answer.

He shook himself out of his paralysis. "Yes. Fine." She stepped up to him. "Nervous?" He asked. She shook her head.

"I've had four 'Long Postings' and scores of First Services. An advantage to wearing so many 'layers' is that you can't see I'm shaking so hard my toenails are about to vibrate off."

He laughed, the first real laugh she'd heard from him in years, and suddenly his arms were around her and he was hugging her.

For many moments he held her close, almost tightly until, suddenly, he remembered and pulled back, his self-consciousness making him draw away, but then reach out, guiltily brushing out the quasi-wrinkles in her purple Chasuble.

Patricia McCabe did not begrudge him this pulling back, because for those ten seconds she had been in the arms of the real Malki Reed. She knew now that he was in there, and that she would see him again.

She also realized her apprehensions were gone. In those ten seconds, she knew she was finally home.


	8. First Rites

Chapter Eight

First Rites

When the moment came, a few minutes after Malcolm had left; Mother McCabe stepped out of the improvised Sacristy and was grateful that, for the moment, the backs of the majority of the people present were turned to her. 'Shift down, indeed', she thought. She knew that there were some eighty plus members of this crew, and though the majority counted themselves as members of one of the Christian denominations, many did not. She easily picked out, in different parts of the room, the Denobulan Doctor, the Vulcan First Officer and, seated near the back just before her, the Auran Biologist. Commander Tucker was seated beside her, and on her other side was the female ensign from Life Sciences … Elizabeth Cutler; she remembered. Beside her was the Security Officer that Malcolm had referred to earlier when he'd alluded to Security and Life Sciences getting along well. The seeming multitude of others she would learn in time.

It was traditional for announcements and introductions to be done at an appropriate part of the Service, so that it might begin directly. But she knew that though she could be introduced easily to everyone, she should learn the names and backgrounds of the eighty plus as soon as she could. But right now that was not the point.

The point was that there were far too few chairs for the throng that was packed into the room and lining three of the four walls. It would take a figurative _shoehorn_ to force one more person inside.

She tried to swallow down the lump that suddenly appeared in her throat.

At a subtle signal from a crewman standing near the front of the far wall, close to the edge of the ten foot deep area set aside as the 'Sanctuary', Captain Archer, seated in about the middle of the room and not near the front, stood up. It was the signal for everyone else in the room to come to Attention.

McCabe was grateful for the subtlety, and started across the 'rear' of the room and forward along the 'center' aisle, actually grateful for the volume of clothes she had joked about to disguise the trembling that had started to assault her.

Reaching the cloth covered table-cum-Altar, she turned to her 'congregation', and was completely unable to speak.

She closed her eyes, trying to force calmness, to focus on her Service, and when she could look again she was grateful for their patience, and especially grateful that her voice did not break.

"The Service this morning is offered for the repose of the souls of the departed, particularly that of George Pineda, Priest. Our opening hymn, found on your seats, is 'A Mighty Fortress is our God'."

x

Ann Anderson, in charge of music, set the first hymn filtering through the speakers; those who knew the music and lyrics covering those that did not. McCabe had tried to select the most traditional music she could, having no idea what was familiar to so eclectic a group, and from the number of people who responded she decided she had made a good first choice.

About half way through the fourth stanza, Elizabeth Cutler, standing with her friends in the rear of the room, was distracted by a sharp gasp. She glanced at Tia, seeing the girl looking shocked. "What's wrong?" She whispered quietly under the music, barely loud enough for the young woman to hear.

"Nyasura. No thing." Tia whispered, forcing herself to recover quickly. "Wrong thing is nyas." Liz shrugged it off.

x

The Service continued through the opening Collect and led in turn to the first Reading, this of the Old Testament, which Trip Tucker had been asked to do. He stood up, coming forward from the last row and taking his place at the improvised 'Lectern', actually a support platform from storage that did not hide its true nature, as McCabe sat down in the seat behind him. He was far enough away from the wall that she had a clear view of the room past him, yet she kept her eyes front, not looking at any of them, focused on the Lesson as 'required'.

Opening the book set upon it, he found the marked spot and looked out at the 'congregation'. "This is from the Second Book of Genesis." He explained helpfully, if inaccurately, to the assembled crew.

As he began to read the story of the Garden of Eden, Liz Cutler, in the rear of the room near the door, heard a small, sharp gasp beside her, and when she looked Tia was sitting tensely, staring at Trip in the 'front' of the room with a look of utter shock, which actually grew worse as she watched. The golden woman wasn't breathing, and the more he spoke the more intensely … 'horrified' was the only word Liz could think of, she became.

She was not breathing at all, but looked absolutely stricken and on the verge of tears. All the color was draining from her face; Liz could actually watch it happen. She was about to touch her, get her attention and ask what was wrong when Tia was out of her seat, dashing past Liz and Jim and running for the rear door which opened just in time barely wide enough to admit her.

Trip stopped reading, just two sentences short of the end, startled at first by the sudden commotion and then absolutely _mortified_ to see who had caused it! He had caught just a glimpse of Tia turning right into the corridor at a dead run and turned to McCabe, who was seated behind him against the wall. He prayed she had not seen it.

Of course, though she had not been paying attention to her 'congregation', the unexpected ruckus was just too distracting. Just his luck. He looked at her, having absolutely no idea what to say. She turned to him with a small smile, trying to take some of his obvious embarrassment down. "This doesn't usually happen until I start talking about 'Tithing'."

xx

After the Service, the remainder of which had proceeded without incident, Trip and Hoshi conspired to be the last to approach Mother McCabe. "Reverend, I'm truly _sorry_ for Tia's behavior." Trip said. "I have no explanation."

"No, I'm not upset. But neither do I want to upset any of my new friends. I don't want to cause anyone here any distress. We've had too much of _that_ already." She said feelingly. "Perhaps if I spoke to her?"

"I'll come to help." Hoshi said, outpacing Trip by a half second. "Sometimes she's a little hard to follow." She glanced up at Trip. He could overrule her offer, which was his right, or he could, as Lt. O'Cathain might quote 'Let discretion be your tutor'.

He opted for the latter with a nod. He'd find out the story later and privately.

xxx

"I really have no insights." Hoshi confessed to the woman after she had changed into her 'work clothes' of black pants and royal blue shirt with collars and cross. "We've talked a lot, about many things, except Religion. Except for one aspect, which she calls Daasii," she said, pronouncing it 'day-ah-sigh-ee', "she is _intensely_ private about her planet's religion – or religions. I don't even know that." Hoshi remembered the one occasion when, with the best of intentions, she had accidentally walked in on what she too late realized were Tia's private devotions. The girl had been enraged, equating Hoshi's intrusion to _rape_, and had nearly thrown her out of her quarters. Since that day, Hoshi had never raised the subject of religion.

"I understand. She speaks very … very…"

"It's not that she's difficult to understand, but it can be interesting." Hoshi explained as they walked slowly down the corridor together. Hoshi did not want to arrive at the quarters nearby too soon.

"I understand she doesn't like to use the UT?"

"Hates it. I think it's a matter of pride. At first she just wanted to be able to be understood in places that don't have a UT, but since then its become … well, 'pride' or 'dignity', I'm not quite sure which is more, but whatever, she can be …" She hunted for the right 'diplomatic' word, "stubborn. Also, she's trying to find a balance between her own world's customs and ours, and sometimes I'm not sure which one is 'winning'."

"Why does either have to 'win'?"

"As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't. But it's not my life."

"So, let me get this straight. She thinks in … Auran?" She thought that was the name. Hoshi nodded.

"And translates it, when she can, word for word into the English she's learned. Sometimes she gets new words wrong; which situations can be interesting in themselves. But that's rare because she has a good memory for languages. But on the whole, once you learn the 'rules', you can pretty much keep up."

"Okay, what are the rules?"

"Well, a negative is always at the end, so sometimes you have to watch for it, because 'no' and 'not' often slip back to 'nyas' and 'nyasi' unless she's careful; and if you miss it; it can change the whole message. The word for 'yes' is 'daai', by the way." She said, pronouncing it 'day-aye'. "The verb often precedes the noun, and the adjective sometimes is even separated by the conjunctive. The infinitive or the definite article is often at the end, except in a negative; where that comes at the end; and the infinitive is split more often than not, far more so than we're used to. And two nouns in the same sentence are always paired, but in the personal/subject order, so I/you and You/I are distinctly different. There's no such thing as a contraction and -." McCabe raised her hand.

"That's the short summary?"

Hoshi grinned. "No, that's the short, short one." They stopped in front of cabin E/58, and she pressed the annunciation button. It took nearly fifteen seconds for the door to slide aside, and they looked at the golden woman in surprise.

x

Tia was dressed in the flowing floral garment she'd worn to the Service, but now it was rumpled, as if she'd lain in it. Her hair was slightly disarrayed, but her eyes were deeply golden, and though they were partially dry, her cheeks were wet. When she saw them, she hastily rubbed her hands over her eyes and cheeks, drying them further. "Anston," she apologized. "Shar-les I expecting was."

She had been expecting his visit ever since the moment she had run in fear from the Mess Hall, making it back to her room in a mind-shattering tumult, managing to lock her door before falling upon the bed, sobbing as her universe unraveled and threw her mind into a cataclysmic maelstrom, her soul slammed down to perdition, to Ierilsnu; her whole cosmos shattered.

She didn't know how long she'd lain there, weakened and shaken by the titanic catharsis.

When she'd heard the door chime, she'd thought it had been Charles. She'd gone to the door, not knowing what to say, fearful of his anger but not knowing how to explain her behavior.

She'd expected his anger when he arrived, knowing she deserved it and having no way of thinking how to avoid it other than that. She thought he would be angry, suspected that she might have been had their positions been reversed, but could not think of dealing with it when her entire universe was coming apart!

That it had not been him at the door, but Hoshi and this new Priest, only disconcerted her further. She was now even more embarrassed, having absolutely no idea what to say or do. And the emotions she looked for in them were not apparent, making it even harder to prepare.

x

"He'll be coming later, but we wanted to see you first, see that you were all right."

She opened her mouth to speak, and found she could not bring herself to lie.

"Nyas." She said softly, looking away, unable to keep their eyes. "I 'all right' am nyasi."

"I am sorry, child. I had no intention of upsetting you, or anyone else here."

"You did nyasi. That is, you nyasi; but…" She shook her head, unable to think of the words. "In come?" She stepped aside, letting them into the room. When the door closed, she stood by it, trying to collect her thoughts. "Anst- Sorry I my behavior for am." She said softly. "_Shocked_ I was."

"Our Services are intended to be uplifting; comforting. I'm sorry you did not find them so." McCabe said equally softly, but Tia shook her head.

"Is that not." She looked appealingly at Hoshi. "How explain can I? Human you are, know I the words not."

"In Auran then?"

Tia tried to speak, but could not. She tried again, and then shook her head in frustration. "How I you explain to? If angry you were; defend myself I could. But explain what _impossible_ is, how can I?" Hoshi would have been perfectly willing to let her off the hook, but she could tell the girl did want to talk.

"Try."

Tia turned to the woman, barely knowing what to say. "Anston – when upset I am, tied tongue I get. That song all you sang? In the end; 'Lord Sabaoth' you mentioned."

"'Dost ask who that might be'," McCabe quoted, "'Christ Jesus it is he; Lord Sabaoth his name'."

Tia nodded. She clenched her hands together, not really wanting to say it, but she had come this far and had to explain. But it was such a … violation of her privacy that she actually had to force the words out through her unwilling lips.

"Lord Sabaoth the Consort of Aura is. Lord Sabaoth the Unchanging."

"'From age to age the same'." McCabe finished, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Thought I it a coincidence was. Lurine … _Wanted_ I to it a coincidence think was."

"Until Commander Tucker read the Old Testament." Tia nodded; then turned away, stepping over to a set of drawers beyond the head of the bed. She hesitated, turning back to the women.

"Told you of my coming here has she?" She asked McCabe.

"Very little."

"'Refugee' for me the word they use is. Conquered my world is and slaves of the Silurians we are, what we the klusert ku vorklis call; in your tongue the 'demons of hell'. They you call 'snakes' or 'serpents' from your world's biology." She took a deep, trembling breath. "Your world. Serpents you have; do we not. Until here I came, knew the word nyas." She hesitated; then with a start seemed to remember. "Qualsia – um, 'please'. Sit?" Hoshi chose the chair from the desk, turning it around, allowing McCabe to sit on the more comfortable bed. They noticed that the bed was as rumpled as the front of Tia's dress. That, and her moist eyes earlier, told them more than they needed to know. They waited, watching as Tia tried to gather her thoughts.

"Escaped I, and others, did; in a ship of the Silurians. My friends they were. But _died_ they did when caught and attacked we were. Shar-les, and others, they me rescued. Almost dead I was, but saved they me did.

"But nyasura, um, 'nothing' of Aura have I. Books, art, music, clothing …" She fingered the flowing garment she wore. "Similar to my clothes this is. Hoshi and Liz did Risa on for me buy, but is mine not."

"It is yours." Hoshi maintained, but Tia shook her head.

"Of Aura have I things no. Even a fuur – a 'blade' of grass, a pebble. _Nyasura_. Nyasura but my _memories_." She turned to the drawers and knelt down, opening the lowest one. She very carefully, very reverently, took out a red garment and laid it on her lap. She glanced up at Hoshi, who did not hide her recognition of it in time. She held up one sleeve of the garment enough for the women to see the intricate golden threads woven about the wrist, encircling it in a curious, flowing pattern of curves and curlicues. "Made this I from one of your ship's robes did. Exact not, but closest could I make. Only one time you me in this see did."

"I've told no one." Hoshi promised.

"Daai." She nodded; assured. "Know I do. Trust you I always do." She looked at McCabe. "Today special clothes you wore when commune with your God you did. When commune with Aura, this I wear."

"I understand."

"Tell one no. Wedsa - _Private_ it is."

"I promise."

Seemingly satisfied that the promise would be kept, she reached into the drawer again and drew out a large, thick, bound book. If anything, she handled it even more lovingly, hugging it to her chest. She raised her eyes to them as she held the book protectively, as if unwilling to part with it for an instant. "This gave me Liz." She said softly. "A friend it her to gave, but says she 'I'm no artist', so she me it gave to. Here have I been putting what remember I do the words of Aura, against the day when remember I will not." She replaced the short red robe in the drawer and stood up, again hugging the book protectively to her chest, and told them feelingly: "This the most wedsa – the most _private_ thing is have I. Even to _Shar-les_ I it would show not."

She lowered the book, turned it around, opened first one page, then the next. Then, clearly fighting her own desire, her own reluctance, she turned it around and offered it to Mother McCabe.

The woman accepted it with as much reverence as she could, clearly treating it as the precious thing it was. She looked at the pages, which were large enough to offer plenty of room for sketches, finding intricately curved and flowing writing. Great care had obviously been used in the symbols, which were all curves and curlicues, ornate, intricate and precise. Unfortunately, she had no idea what they meant. She looked up at Tia. "I'm sorry."

The look on Tia's face was plain; one of self-reproach. She'd been so wrapped up in her thoughts and feelings she hadn't thought to realize the woman could not read Auran. She glanced at Hoshi, who had been looking on from her chair, but could not see the writing well, particularly upside down.

Hoshi left the chair to sit on the bed beside McCabe, now looking at the graceful curves from the proper perspective, but did not touch the book; well aware she had not been invited to do so. Tia reached down, her golden finger touching one of the intricately flowing symbols, indicating where her friend should start.

Hoshi, who had not seen much Auran outside of practice sessions with Tia, in trying to teach her how to read English as well as she could speak it, took a few moments to read ahead, trying to get the sense of the flowing script before starting to speak. As she did, she could feel her mouth slowly dropping in wonder, and chilled fingers brushed her heart. When she'd read half the page, she looked up at the young Auran, her voice reduced to a breathy whisper. "I have no explanation for this."

"What?" McCabe could barely contain her curiosity.

Hoshi looked down at the spot Tia had indicated and began to read, her voice soft and filled with wonder. She did not think she _could_ speak above a whisper.

"In the day that Aura made the land and all that was above, when no plant of the field had yet sprung up in the land; for the Lord Sabaoth the Unchanging had not caused it to rain, a stream would rise from the land from the cup of Sabaoth and water the whole face of the ground. Then did Aura form man and woman from the gold of the ground, and breathed into them her breath; and they did live. And Aura did plant a garden in Edal Boan ('to be forever'); and there she put the man and woman whom she had formed, to till and keep it.

"Out of the ground the Lord Sabaoth made to grow every tree that is to sight pleasant and good for food. In the midst of the garden did he put the tree of Life and also the tree of Death. And Aura and her Consort Sabaoth commanded them, 'You may eat freely out of every tree of the garden, but out of the tree of Death you shall not eat, lest you shall die.'

"And the man and his bondmate were both naked in the way of things, having no need of protection other than Aura. And they dwelt in communion with Aura all their days, and the days of their children, and of their children's children to the last generation; and they did eat of all the trees of the garden, and of the animals that Aura did give to them to eat, and the plants that Sabaoth did give them, but they did not eat of the tree of death, and to this day do they remain one with Aura."

She'd reached the end of the page, and Tia took the book back, cradling it in her arms. Not one of the women had any words.


End file.
